The Death of Web 2.0
We all know that O’Reilly of tech books fame is the one who first used the term “Web 2.0″ to describe the way the web has matured and how interactivity between a website and its audience is the future of the web. The term, as a GENERIC term to describe the phenomena, has been used everywhere, even on this blog. So it came as a surprise to a small group of IT professionals in Ireland when their free half day conference, to which they invited Tim O’Reilly to speak early on, received a cease and desist letter from CMP, O’Reilly’s legal partners in the O’Reilly Conferences, requiring that IT@Cork stop using the term “Web 2.0″ to refer to the conference. This letter came two weeks before the scheduled conference.
It’s interesting to note that the O’Reilly folks have an application pending for use of the term “Web 2.0″ as a “style mark” in relation to the O’Reilly conferences held yearly. Style Marks are not exactly trademarks. You’d have to use the term EXACTLY as their application reads in order to infringe. Also, until the pending application is granted it’s up in the air as to whether O’Reilly’s company can force anyone not to use the term, especially since the application has been filed in the US, and the conference in question is being held in Ireland and is a fairly local event.
This is a classic case of the big corporate interest beating up on the little guy. IT@Cork is a small nonprofit grassroots organization. I think though, that with the power of the blogosphere, the O’Reilly company has discovered that their bottom line can be affected by this action. The response has been amazing. On the O’Reilly Blog whenever Tim talks about Web 2.0 it results in a backlash of comments from folks pissed about this. It’s snowballed from one blog to another. So much so that the O’Reilly Blog has a post from a person named Sarah Winge, who is a VP of Corporate Communications with O’Reilly, and now also a target in the comment section of some rather pointed criticism over the handling of this matter. The comments to that post are both hilarious and indicative of how much scorn and wrath the O’Reilly company has stirred up with this issue and their handling of it. The fight has even been brought into the WikiPedia, since CMP has made every effort to ensure that there is no mention of “Web 2.0″ in the WikiPedia without a mention of CMP being the stylemark holder, much to the astonishment of the editors.
Meanwhile the blogosphere is talking about the NEXT term to use so we can retire “Web 2.0″ from our collective lexicon, making it obsolete, and making it worthless (especially to O’Reilly and company.)
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, Death, O’Reilly, Cease and Desist, Trademark Infringement
