Why Web 2.0?

I’ve noticed all of the e-commotion that my Web 2.0 Design Kit tutorials have created. I must say, the amount of angry and bitter comments I’ve received (mostly from Digg.com) seem to be a little unwarranted. I’m not new to the “Web 2.0″ buzzword and the politics it comes with, but I think people assumed I was trying to say something with my tutorials that I wasn’t. Not once did I say “This is how to build a Web 2.0 website” or “Use these techniques and your website will be Web 2.0″. That wasn’t my purpose at all.

My purpose was to show how to create some of the effects that I’ve seen become more popular (trendy?) across web design lately. Just look through any of the web design showcase sites popping up and I’ll bet that you will see a good percentage of the effects that I’ve explained in my tutorials in use.

I’m a web developer. It’s what I do for a living. I build sites in PHP, use Javascript, XHTML, CSS and a bunch of other acronyms. I browse through most of the popular web-related blog sites and I’ve watched the “Web 2.0″ and “AJAX” buzzword craze.

So, why did I choose the term “Web 2.0″? Because it’s there. I didn’t know how else to describe what I was seeing in web design. And “Create Trendy Website Design Effects” is too long of a title. It wouldn’t fit nicely on my homepage ;).

I know that “Web 2.0″ isn’t just a look or a feel of a site. I know that it’s more than a few gradients and drop shadows in Photoshop. I don’t know what it is exactly but does anybody (besides O’Reilly)? That’s why I never stated that my tutorials would make your website “Web 2.0 compliant” or any kind of BS like that.

They’re Photoshop tutorials, not statements to the cause of a political web-revolution. So please, don’t send me comments lecturing me on how my tutorials “aren’t even Web 2.0 dude”. They’re not supposed to be.