A week ago, I attended a round-table on the Future of Technology with well-known speakers: Esther Dyson, Jaron Lanier, Bernie Meyerson and Ken Perlin.

The discussion quickly focused around the phenomena of Web 2.0, with endless ramblings of the new found popularity with facebook, myspace, secondlife and blogging.  The echoes of concern around the table sound familiar as early as the dawn of information age – privacy and control of personal information, accessibility of the new medium of communication, communities, power of media and publicity, or in many cases instant fame by virtually anyone in the world.

As we are coming out of 2007, undoubtedly the most influential technical word this year is “2.0″.  Anything that has the numerical link to it –*2.0 –seems to work magic and have enormous media coverage. Gen Y is taking the center stage, leading the way for new ways of community sharing, often personal information and thoughts.

Will this trend continue? Will Dec 2008 round-table be another excited chant of Web technologies 3.0 and beyond.  I think that it’s Yes.

Web 2.0 is not about technologies, but rather using the Internet as a collaborative communication medium. Funny that it took us one generation to figure these out.