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ZdNet is running a little poll inviting readers to come up with the ‘Top Ten differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0′. The writer manages to offer AJAX (wrong) and O’Reilly’s alleged service mark on the expression (which he’s also wrong about).

Reader CobraA1 cleverly subverts the poll in his/her comment:

Top 10 reasons why it should be called “web 7.0″ or something similar
Incredibly, people are thinking this is the first big, huge, jump from what we had - but guess what? It’s not the first time.

Top ten things that changed long before anybody even knew of “Web 2.0″:

1. We went from ARPANET to the Internet.
2. We went from bulletin boards and a protocol called “gopher” to webpages and http.
3. We started using Hypertext Markup Language.
4. We started using XML & CSS instead of plain HTML.
5. Development of TCP/IP.
6. DNS instead of plain IP addresses.
7. Unicode instead of plain DOS text.
8. Email.
9. Instant Messaging.
10. Wireless access.

This isn’t the first - and certainly won’t be the last - time that we’ve experienced new technologies during the development of the Internet. “Web 2.0″ is simply a marketing tool and a name for the conferences of O’Reilly, pure and simple.

The top ten times to use the term “Web 2.0″:

1. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
2. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
3. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
4. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
5. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
6. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
7. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
8. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
9. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.
10. When talking about O’Reilly conferences.

It’s a great response to a poll which is frankly very out-of-date: The Register ran its (funnier) poll on the same subject in November 2005. However, I certainly resist the idea that this is nothing but marketing. I would start a definition with “economic regeneration and a fresh excitement about the Internet following the first wave that ended in the NASDAQ crash of 2001″ and finish with the idea of “applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them”.

Geek and Poke has its own take: