what is 2.0 ( web 2.0,mobile 2.0, office 2.0 etc)

I have been asked by many folks about what it means by 2.0 in different technology space. I tried to check on the net to see if there is some description of all the “2.0”. Couldn’t find one, or maybe I was short sighted. So here you go guys, just summarized how 2.0 apply to different technology space. ( I know some of these technologies and definitions are pretty old, but surprised to know not many people understand 2.0 other than web 2.0 )

Web 2.0
Web 2.0 has been such a big phenomenon that it’s hard to write a simple description for this phrase. So many veterans have come up with their own description of what web 2.0 means. I guess for me, web 2.0 is a marketing terminology that can be used in different context and application space. Off course, it has already proved to be one of the hottest technology internets has ever embraced. Here is some description of web 2.0 by Tim O’Reilly

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.

I love the hierarchy of web2.0ness described by Tim O’reilly (check out the complete article Tim O’reilly Article on web2.0)
Level 3: The application could ONLY exist on the net, and draws its essential power from the network and the connections it makes possible between people or applications. These are applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. EBay, craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, (and yes, Dodgeball) meet this test. They are fundamentally driven by shared online activity. The web itself has this character, which Google and other search engines have then leveraged. (You can search on the desktop, but without link activity, many of the techniques that make web search work so well are not available to you.) Web crawling is one of the fundamental Web 2.0 activities, and search applications like Adsense for Content also clearly have Web 2.0 at their heart.
Level 2: The application could exist offline, but it is uniquely advantaged by being online. Flickr is a great example. You can have a local photo management application (like iPhoto) but the application gains remarkable power by leveraging an online community. In fact, the shared photo database, the online community, and the artifacts it creates (like the tag database) is central to what distinguishes Flickr from its offline counterparts. And its fuller embrace of the internet (for example, that the default state of uploaded photos is "public") is what distinguishes it from its online predecessors.
Level 1: The application can and does exist successfully offline, but it gains additional features by being online. Writely is a great example
Level 0: The application has primarily taken hold online, but it would work just as well offline if you had all the data in a local cache. MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps are all in this category (but mashups like housingmaps.com are at Level 3.) To the extent that online mapping applications harness user contributions, they jump to Level 2.

Mobile 2.0
Mobile 2.0 is an extension of mobile into the web space. It is a leap towards mobile services that are already popular with the web interface like social networking, match making, location based services etc. Open interface and user choice is the starting point of mobile 2.0. Interesting to know that mobile handset is something users cannot live without. So an extension to all the web services that can be accessed through mobile is going to be the future of mobile handset. Also, mobile widgets are already playing a bigger role. I know lots of folks don’t like mobile 2.0 to be called as; mobile and web integration. Extension of web 2.0 applications to mobile is something I would call mobile 2.0. So this includes all those innovative applications that we are crooning about on the web 2.0 space.

Voice 2.0
This was the term coined by Alec sanders, one of the very popular blogger and CEO of iotum. (I like their product called talk-now, which combines some of the interesting features to bring in user/network intelligence). It’s a very interesting area and one of my favorite. I want to write a whole article on my version of voice 2.0. Check out my blog for a future article on this.
Initially voice 2.0 was envisioned as voice and web integration. However, Voice 2.0 can be related to different technologies ( voice,video,im,presence,data convergence etc) that users currently use for their communication. It gives users more control on their availability, accessibility etc. I guess voice 2.0 from technical standpoint is partial FMC, partial unified communication.
Some companies to watch for in this space
Iotum
grandcentral
Talkplus

Enterprise 2.0
Supporting web 2.0 application in enterprise space is phrased as enterprise 2.0. This is a very interesting and crowded space. It makes so much sense to integrate some of the web 2.0 tools into enterprise. Some of the interesting applications that can be integrated into enterprise are:
• Hypertext and unstructured search tools
• Wikis for authoring and linking
• Weblogs for authoring and storytelling.
• Social bookmarking for tagging and building folksonomy.
• RSS Web Feed Server and Newsreaders for signaling
• Collaborative planning software for peer-based project planning and management
• Social Networking to connect people in or associated with an organization
• Real-time Communications such as chat, audio and video conferencing and virtual environments

Telco 2.0
Telecom industry embracing the principles of web 2.0, technologies and services from the internet is Telco 2.0. Operators can leverage on the existing applications and bridge them using some kind of mashups. So, here we are talking about breaking away from the silo model of operators. This will help them from just being a dump pipe.
Check out this web site for more info
Telco2.0

Office 2.0
Integration of different office applications with the web is called as Office 2.0. What this means is, generic web browser that support all the office apps like word,excel,presentation etc. User can share the documents or removing the need for any application to be installed on the computer itself. I call it Office 2.0.
Some companies to watch for in this space
Zimbra
( As iam writing this article, just read that zimbra was bought over by yahoo for about 350 million dollars, wow that’s a lot of money for online apps)
Zoho
Google Docs

SMS 2.0
SMS 2.0 is an enhanced feature upgrade to the existing cell phone sms messaging platform. You could do more than just sending messages to your friends using sms messaging platform. Using sms messaging as a platform, there are so many different applications that can be built; this forms the basis for SMS 2.0. I would call this as a marketing terminology for all the new applications that are built on top of sms messaging platform. SMS 2.0 has converged messaging, content and advertising into one seamless application.

ME 2.0 It’s me interacting with the users through this blog. Just kidding.