Last week I did a poll about who coined the phrase Web 2.0 which is attributed to more than one person. I did it as an exercise to unveil how we don't really know how exactly Buzz words emerge and how poor we are at certain times of historical documentation despite being the web!

The history of media especially as it crossed with digital media at the rise of Web 2.0 is more of a meme or a joke how does it start and where and by whom? Almost impossible to find person X. From 1999 through to about 2006 pieces of the web's history are just not strong.

The Arc of Web 2.0 was for me filled with open ideas, activism for open standards, internet activism, Creative Commons, second wave of online growth and expanding technical ideas as well as disrupted social environments. For me a very happy time of Hope in the wake of 9/11.

Well the earliest reference occurred in 1999 in print magazine there is no question Tim O'Reilly in very intense detail described first the Technologies and Concepts in great detail and later again the business. Dale and Tim both used the term. Time named web2 person of the year!

But who really coined the phrase it's like asking who told that joke or made up that meme we don't always really know and it begged a big part of my brain interested in web history got huge gaps in documentation and influencers which The Arc between 99 and 2006 is left blank

Largely speaking by Publishers and writers and technologists including myself who were there and look back and wonder what about all of the incredible things that were done by incredible people world over that have become contentious human history that is very poorly documented.

Is that representative of human history or is it more representative of the shift toward a world of becoming ever more digital and mobile? we can point to a few names for Web 2.0 but web 3.0? Who knows who coined what when and it has different connotations. Maybe it's marketing?