Stop, please. The cliche has gotten out of hand. The moniker 2.0’s become an absolute joke that does not mean anything anymore. A Google Blog search conducted yesterday (June 17) on “2.0″ for the past week pulled 93,028 posts. I read 2.0 and pause right there to debate whether or not to bail on the post, marketing collateral, story or whatever it is.
Here are this week’s examples:
- A cutting edge digital media conference featuring, “What’s next in web 2.0?” Don’t even start with a three, everytime you say web 3.0 a start-up dies.
- Enterprise 2.0, yeah! This one’s a big name show this week in Boston (Thank God I’m at NXTComm)
- Government 2.0. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
- Real Estate 2.0. As if land will be reinvented. Oh it was. But this isn’t selling land on Second Life.
Maybe you can get away with it when you’re an established 2.0 brand such as Business 2.0 or the like. These folks were 2.0 when 2.0 was legit! Right, Business 2.0 (est. circa late last century, boys and girls)? But anything new (a la Jan. 1, 2007 and beyond) should never be monikered 2.0.
I would never counsel a client to put 2.0 at the end of a product, service or company name. It seems to me we are in the waning stage of a fad, similar to names that began with an e (a la eHarmony), an X (a la X-Box), .com (Pets.com), etc. To dub something “2.0″ now is bad PR, branding, marketing, or whatever else you want to call it.
“Webolution” (thank you, Michael Pranikoff for this coined word) is a process that will continue to develop, and move beyond current conceptions. Technological change will further impact us. What are they going to call the localized craze that’s sure to follow the GIS-induced geographic tie -into everything user generated? It’s best to create a brand name that meets the product’s value proposition to its community… as opposed to a cliche that’s stuck in a moment. Otherwise you’ll get hit with tens of thousands in re-branding costs.
Geoff is guestblogging this week at NXTcomm. You can read his posts at blog.tiaonline.org.
Well put Geoff! Although a fad is a sure sign that all this new stuff is being accepted by society – which I think is a good thing.
LOL…I’m with you…but also too bad you aren’t here at Enterprise 2.0 (name withstanding), I’d buy you a drink.
/kff
Geoff:
I will stop using 2.0 if you think of a better way of saying “cutting edge” without actually saying it. That was the 2.0 after 1.0 — everyone used it. Pick up a brochure from any tech company or start up and you’ll see it there.
Valeria, perhaps you are right, though in this case it was certainly a sarcastic “cutting-edge.” Note the double entendre there. Either way, cutting edge’s definitely got to have a longer cliche shelf-life than 2.0. Cutting edge actually means something.
You bring up a good point, though. I think all marketers are guilty of cliched language use. Staying on top of appropriate language versus hype seems to be a constant battle as we try to define our value propositions to the marketplace.
My biggest issue with 2.0 is that it really means nothing to anyone. I think that we really need to realize that this is an evolution, not a software package.