Could Web 2.0 Go the Way of the Dino?

This week’s episode of SEM Synergy is all about SEO tools, featuring announcements about the new version of the SEOToolSet and our bright and shiny new tool, the SEMToolbar. We’ll be talking about these updates and new features in lots of detail once they’re released early next year. Until then, tune in to the SEO tools show to find out what to look forward to. Since you’ll be able to hear all about our new tools closer to the release date, I wanted to take a look at another subject that I’ve been thinking about recently.

At the end of the year, people start to talk about what they see coming down the pipeline. Like clockwork, the predictions for the search industry in 2009 have started to roll in. The first one I’ve found is Steve Baldwin’s Ten (Highly Cynical) Predictions For 2009 over at MediaPost.

(Note: I just talked to Bruce and he’s pretty sure he didn’t say that there are 200,000 “dark and shady” SEOs out there. But apart from that, there are several points Steve makes that are worth a few moments of your consideration.)

Some of Steve’s forecasts seem spot-on in that 2+2=4 kind of way. He’s obviously been following trends in the search industry for some time and can see the trajectory of developments as they play out over the long term. Others left me wondering if they could really be true. What jumped out to me the most was prediction number 7: “Web 2.0 will officially be proclaimed dead”.

To make his point, Steve points to Razorfish CEO Clark Kokich’s comment that marketers should stop looking at Web 2.0 and start blazing the trail toward Web 3.0. Kokich defines Web 3.0 as the “integration of all currently available technologies”. If Steve Baldwin sees this as indicating the death of Web 2.0, I think he may have missed the point. Kokich isn’t saying that Web 3.0 will replace Web 2.0. Quite the contrary! Web 3.0 could bring all the Web 2.0 technologies together!

A number of Steve’s predictions are worth thinking about in terms of adjustments you might make to your search marketing process. Certainly, it’s likely that keyword prices will continue to rise — more and more organizations are vying for those goldmine keywords. And it follows that the SEO profession will grow — search is where the marketing dollars are going, so it makes sense that more and more people will find their way into the industry. And of course, as much as it pains me, traditional media is on its last leg. *Tear*

But to say that Web 2.0 is dead?! I must take a stand! (Hear that, Bruce? I don’t want to see that the death of Web 2.0 has a place next to the death of rankings in your predictions for 2009.)

Can you imagine what it would be like if the creative, collaborative and interactive technologies classified as Web 2.0 disappeared? Web 2.0 is part of what makes the Web so cool! Videos are educational, entertaining and fun to share. I suck down RSS like it’s being fed to me intravenously. My social network is my daily portal to my friends’ latest life activities. Blogging is where I make my bread. I don’t even want to think about a Web devolving so far backward as to render useless many of its most attractive and helpful features.

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.