Lunch 2.0

Jeremiah (host of the upcoming Lunch 2.0 Web Expo Blowout at Hitachi Data Systems) just pointed me to an article in The Register about Tim Berners-Lee complaining that “Web 2.0″ is all hype and nothing new. As evidence that the “2.0″ suffix has become trendy and meaningless, the author Gavin Clarke writes:

We have: SOA 2.0, enterprise 2.0, grid 2.0, VoIP 2.0, voice 2.0, BPM 2.0, Office 2.0 and – outside of pure technology – advertising 2.0 and marketing 2.0 (both – naturally – taking advantage of Web 2.0’s social networking technologies), business development 2.0 and – subverting the genre – hidsight 2.0 and lunch 2.0.

I don’t know what to be prouder of–the fact that we were included in this article, or that we’re apparently “subverting the genre”!  

But actually, when I think about it, Lunch 2.0 really does embody a lot of what (with all due respect to Sir Berners-Lee) makes Web 2.0 special: connecting people to people (meeting fellow valley folk and seeing how they work), user-generated content (all of the work is done by companies choosing to host lunch 2.0 events–they even write the announcements!), and customers as active participants (if you didn’t come to lunch 2.0, it wouldn’t exist, and it certainly wouldn’t be as fun and colorful as you always make it!). So in response to Mr. Clarke, I’d say if anything, we exemplify the genre!

Thanks to you all for making lunch 2.0 what it is, and regardless of what happens to web 2.0, we’re here to stay!

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