Lewin Group founder James Lewin’s recent article for IT World, 2006 Will Be a Tipping Point for Online Media, takes a look at the changing world of online media:

For the first ten years of mainstream Internet use, online media has been considered alternative – an alternative to television, radio, print and magazines. Online media had a limited audience, largely a result of bandwidth limitations, but also because web builders were still figuring out how to use Internet multimedia effectively.

10 years on, broadband penetration in the home is pushing 40% in the US, and is much higher in some areas of the world. Just as importantly, many sites are finding ways to use online media effectively. For these reasons and others, it looks like 2006 will be a tipping point for online media.

While we were at South by Southwest (a new media conference) this year, we had a chance to talk to Dan Fost of the San Franscisco Gate.

Apparently, Fost doesn’t completely buy the whole Web 2.0 meme:

I sure drank a lot of Kool-Aid 2.0 at South by Southwest last week. I don’t know what was in the stuff, but I’m catching some of the excitement that’s coursing through the Internet again.

The whole Web 2.0 thing, though, is asking for ridicule. Even most of the companies that fit in the Web 2.0 category aren’t crazy about the phrase (perhaps because it invites the moniker Bubble 2.0). But at least it’s a handy rubric.

It makes me realize how tribal the chatter is at these tech conferences. Linguists would probably love them, if they could understand them.

James Lewin, who runs Web publications on podcasting and other topics with his wife, Elisabeth, in Des Moines, Iowa, heard enough of the blather at South by Southwest to string together a typically meaningless pitch: “We’re monetizing the long tail globally and impactfully in the Web 2.0 space with tags.”

To come up with your own pitch, try this Web site from blogger Andrew Wooldridge and you’ll be streaming RSS-based widgets via Shockwave in no time.

For the record, we are monitizing the long tail globally and impactfully in the Web 2.0 space, with tags.

via SFGate

Web 2.0, the idea that a second-generation Web is developing, has been getting a lot of attention lately. Sites are describing themselves as “Web 2.0″ sites, investors are looking for “Web 2.0″ sites, and it’s becoming a popular tool for framing discussions about the future of the Internet.

It’s also generating its share of controversy, with many thinking that the idea is vaporware or not much more than marketing hype. It’s a flawed term, because many of the ideas that it encapsulates don’t really have anything to do with the Web, but instead relate to other ways of working over the Internet. Also, most of the so-called “2.0″ ideas have been important parts of the Internet since early on.

I’m not convinced yet that Web 2.0 represents much more than a renewed since of optimism in the potential of the Internet. Nevertheless, it’s worth reviewing as a framework for looking at the future of your website or ebusiness, and at the future of the Internet itself.

Offsite Link: Thinking Web 2.0