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Web 2.0

American  

noun

  1. a second generation in the development of the World Wide Web, conceived as a combination of concepts, trends, and technologies that focus on user collaboration, sharing of user-generated content, and social networking.


Web 2.0 British  

noun

  1. the internet viewed as a medium in which interactive experience, in the form of blogs, wikis, forums, etc, plays a more important role than simply accessing information

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Web 2.0

First recorded in 2000–05

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

The social media age — sometimes dubbed Web 2.0 to distinguish it from the less openly interactive earlier era of the internet — seemed to supercharge this impromptu rezoning of the information superhighway.

From Salon Aug. 23, 2026

It is a question informed by having lived through Web 2.0, an era of technology fueled by user data.

From The Wall Street Journal Mar. 14, 2026

The network infrastructure that was built during the dot-com boom became the backbone of Web 2.0.

From Barron's Dec. 12, 2025

Web3 has been billed, often in vague and utopian terms, as an online ecosystem where users will wrest power from the tech behemoths that dominate the current phase of the internet, Web 2.0.

From New York Times Mar. 10, 2022

When you say you’re decentralized and you abandon the structures that happened in Web 2.0 that allow for dealing with fraud and returns and all of these issues, then you’re basically in the Wild West.

From Slate Feb. 24, 2022

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