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Another tier of terminology involves the "Web 2.0", or sometimes "Web 3.0". It's not entirely clear what either term means. One presumes that the earlier advances of "Web 1.0" and "Web 1.5" technology were restricted to improved content, database integration, graphical widgets, etc. However, far from clarifying definitions, using the term "Web X.0" seems to generate yet another level of debate on its own.

The Wikipedia has an fairly decent definition of "Web 2.0", much improved since the beginning of 2007.

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2003[1] and popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004,[2] refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — that facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.

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As used by its supporters, the phrase "Web 2.0" can also refer to one or more of the following:

• The transition of web sites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming computing platforms serving web applications to end-users
• A social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation"
• Enhanced organization and categorization of content, emphasizing deep linking
• A rise in the economic value of the Web, possibly surpassing the impact of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s

Earlier users of the phrase "Web 2.0" employed it as a synonym for "Semantic Web". The combination of social-networking systems such as FOAF and XFN with the development of tag-based folksonomies, delivered through blogs and wikis, sets up a basis for a semantic web environment.

It is farily clear in the defintion that Web 2.0 may represent a step in the direction of the Semantic Web. However, it looks as if the Web 2.0 as envisioned lacks the capability for machines to understand the meaning of things and communicate that meaning to people or other machines.

On the other hand, I think it is becoming clear that the Web 2.0 initiative will represent a major step in that direction, and perhaps far more than a small step in term of the way the Semantic Web is used by ordinary, non-technical people in their everyday activities. It will require powerful and sophisticated user interfaces to make the new semantic universe accessible to the non-technical 95% of people in the world rather than the technically inclined 5% of the people. Web 2.0 technology seems to be playing a major role in constructing these interfaces.