I'm sure you're asking "What the heck is 'Web 2.0' and why do I care?" Okay, maybe that's not a good title for this article. Maybe it should be "Internet: The Next Generation," or "HTML, XML, XHTML, AJAX, RSS, JSON and Other Acronyms That Are Taking Over Your Life." Normally I try to avoid using technical jargon but this is one concept you really need to understand.

So what is Web 2.0? A phenomenon, more than anything real—although its impact on your business is certainly real. But to understand why you should care about Web 2.0, we need to explain "Web 1.0." The thing we now call the Internet was first conceived in 1961, actually coming into existence in 1965. (Note: Al Gore was not there.) Why didn't we start using it then? Because it was weird, and only those with multimillion dollar computers could have accessed it, anyway.  Twenty years later, IBM introduced the PC; why didn't we embrace the Internet in the early 80s? Because it was weird and only geeks with the patience to wait for a 300 baud line could have used it. Finally, in 1991, that first acronym was born and, with the arrival of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), mere mortals had a way to publish information and have it read by anyone in the world--even those with a different type of computer. But even then, the Internet failed to catch on. Why? Because it was weird, and no one but geeks knew what a web server was since there were still only fifty or so in the world.  In 1993, web browsers that could translate HTML into nice, easy-to-read documents (with pictures!) arrived on the scene, and people began to grasp the possibilities. By 1995, web servers were popping up everywhere, at the rate of 700 per day, and the Internet finally caught on; in fact, it fairly exploded. From the time the Internet was first conceived, till the time it finally started to catch on, was 35 years. In contrast, the current level of innovation and adoption is so fast that it begs to be named. That's what Web 2.0 is.

With so many people on the Internet, companies have discovered they can dramatically lower overhead by letting customers gather their own information and make their own purchases— on the world wide web. Lower costs lead to lower prices, and consumers like lower prices, so they've responded to online shopping in droves. This has driven the need for increasingly sophisticated programs to handle this burgeoning human-to-computer communication. It's also driven the need for more sophisticated computer-to-computer communication. (Enter XML!)

The bottom line is that this "innovation explosion" that's been nicknamed "Web 2.0," whereby people are using the Internet in more and more creative ways, to do things we couldn't have imagined as recently as five years ago, is revolutionizing the way the world does business. We're now working together (some would call it playing!) to build information stores, transmit audio and video images, create newscasts (RSS and XHTML), develop social networks, establish buying groups, share product reviews, produce online encyclopedias, etc. And we like it! Look at the staggering success of MySpace, YouTube, Blogger, Wikipedia, and other online communities. Companies such as Google are happily supplying free online services for users to continue brainstorming and create even more services (called mash-ups; see definition in this month's Geek Speak), which will be quickly adopted by other users.

Meanwhile, companies large and small are using these innovations to create self-service, online "virtual" stores where customers can research, buy, track, and return defective items at their convenience. Businesses that, a few years ago, might have opened a second location, are building e-commerce websites instead, adding more services instead of more employees, taking customer service to a whole new level. And customers are responding: we like being spoiled, tracking our own packages, seeing what our dream car looks like in Gamecock Red or Tiger Orange. We like ordering things at midnight. In our jammies. Bottom line: both consumers and companies—at an ever-increasing rate--are finding that doing business online is more efficient, more convenient, more affordable and, sometimes, more fun.

From this point on, any company that isn't using the Internet to do business, and adding new services and technologies as quickly as they become available, is going to get left behind. Because we're fast becoming a generation that wants what we want, when we want it, and what we want is full information, served up instantly. And if we don't get what we want, we hit that back button and, in a heartbeat, we've moved on to the next website.

So, let me ask you again: are you ready for Web 2.0? You need to be; it's already here.