What do you think about Web 2.0? The following is so far my favorite explanation on what Web 2.0 is all about, which comes from Robin Good’s recent article–Web 2.0 Examples: A Mini-Guide–dated October 6, 2005.

The article also gave six great examples of Websites that were built using this Web 2.0 approach. I also learn from it a Dutch company BackBase which has been doing a wonderful job on Web 2.0 and rich Internet applications.

Web 2.0 refers to technologies that allow data to become independent of the person who produced it or the site it originated on. It deals with how information can be broken up into units that flow freely from one site to another, often in ways the producer did not foresee or intend.

The Web 2.0 paradigm allows net users to pull information from a variety of sites simultaneously and deliver it on their own site to achieve new purposes.

But it is not a world of stealing others’ work or pirating information for one’s own gain. Instead, Web 2.0 is a product of the open-source, sharing notions the internet was founded on, and makes data more connected. This allows new information and business opportunities to be built upon the shoulders of the information that came before.

Web 2.0 lets data act as its own entity, which can be changed, altered or remixed by anyone for any specific purpose. When data is an entity, the net moves from a collection of websites to a true web of sites that can interact and process information collectively.