Brad Berens wrote a cool post that I picked up on Technorati. He makes a few points upon I will now proceed to pile on.

Brad thinks that Web 2.0 hasn’t really arrived. Yet. First, I don’t know how you can really define Web 2.0. The “2.0″ idea has to do with individual user empowerment, community centricity, and democratization, not your fridge e-mailing your cell phone to remind you to pick up milk. The whole milk thing isn’t web 2.0, but rather a (rather distant) reach at trying to find a way to increase the peravasiveness of the Net itself, coming from the likes of Bill Gates and others who seem to have a knack for gee-whiz concepts that never get commercialized because they have zero chance of impacting the way people live and communicate.

So what IS 2.0? I think 2.0 is here, but it didn’t come from Gen-X. The thirty-somethings that surfed the bubble ten years ago brought us web services and XML and operating systems that were stable enough to run the infrastructure of the Net. But it was the people that came after this generation that built YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and Skype. Dont get me wrong. eBay and Amazon have embraced certain 2.0 concepts, but when it comes to community-centric user empowerment or the politics of popular relevance, these services are far behind.

The underlying current of 2.0 is to reward the content that has the most popular value. And when I say value I mean relevance, significance, and “fame potential”. I am convinced that, if Napoleon Dynamite had been released only on the web, it would still have been a huge hit, because it had breakthrough fame potential that was rewarded by a democratized consumer populace. It didn’t do good in theaters because it had a crummy distribution deal, but when it came out on DVD, and the WORD GOT OUT, Napoleon was a smash success.

And so it is with succesful 2.0 content. The more people are empowered to share, the more they can reward the content they value, and, collectively, the more the community can elevate the content that deserves the reward. Taking the strategic angling of distribution and legalese out of the equation is ultimately good for content and content-producers, and that is one of the things 2.0 excels at. Why else would people who were formerly unknowns on the web suddenly get one million hits in a day from Digg? It’s a 2.0 thing, and it never would’ve happened in the days of “search engine registration” and “banner ads”.

2.0 is here, man.

But Brad wants to take it to the next level, and I’m right with him. What are the barriers to the growth of democratization of content onlne?

1. Access (or lack thereof). Brad makes the point that ubiquitous Internet access is going to be necessary to take us into the future, and it’s an excellent point. I would add that it’s the big telcos and regulated duopolies/monopolies that dole out carefully apportioned access to the Net that stand in the way of 2.0′s growth. Ubiquitous WiFi is needed. Meaning everywhere. Maybe it’s WiMax, maybe it’s Muni, maybe it’s commercial. But it must be everywhere, and it must be cheap.

2. The declining role of desktop computing platforms. Brad makes another point that I agree with. He thinks laptops and desktops will be less and less central to the daily communications experience of most users. I won’t take it to the extreme, but I do agree that the application layer of network computing has got to get smarter, and I know that coming out with “a new version” of Windows or Mac OS every few years isn’t the permanent answer. Frameworks for using non-computer devices even non-interactive smart devices (like RFID systems and GPS) with the Internet have yet to surface outside the domain of the desktop OS, and are therefore pidgeon-toed into the roles that desktop computer software makes available for them. This, too, must change. And it already has, in some respects. Game consoles are a good example. No OS to learn, no command line interface, no blue screen of death. Just FUNCTION.

Anyway, check out Brad’s article.