and another thing
Web 2.0 has a bazillion different definitions but the one I like the best (by virtue of not being an entire essay long) is that Web 2.0 is the internet with uploading as well as downloading. Or rather, it denotes websites which, rather than providing information and services, allow the user to contribute his or her own information (text, photos, blog entries, videos, music, links) for others to see. In recognition of this sea change, Time Magazine named "You" Person Of The Year in 2006.
Some Web 2.0 websites (according to this definition) and their founding dates are as follows:
Wikipedia (2001), LiveJournal (1999), Friendster (2002), Twitter (2006), Flickr (2004), Facebook (2004), Knol (2007), MySpace (2003), Digg (2004), Reddit (2005), del.icio.us (2003), YouTube (2005), Everything2 (1999).
Wow. Check us out!
So a lot of prominent Web 2.0 sites are missing from this list, many of them with earlier founding dates, many of them having folded since they were founded. But still, it is fair to say that E2 was one of the very first Web 2.0 sites of any kind, and that E2 was three to five years ahead of its time. Indeed, E2 predates the technologies that have come to be traditionally associated with Web 2.0 (XML, wikis, tagging, RSS, CSS, AJAX, etc.). Knol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol) is E2's only real imitator/competitor, and it's currently in private beta. It took eight years for Knol to appear!
Of course E2 took off like a rocket! The coolest thing on the internet always does! E2 appeared at a time where user-submitted content was a novelty, and where a massive collaborative text database was the most amazing thing of all time. But E2 isn't the wild frontier anymore. It's not unusual. It's mainstream.
Or, to put it a different way:
E2 is no longer cool.