Kind of curmudgeonly. I'm curious.

Thanks Lance. Glad to see people as annoyed as me! Ellen im almost 39 years old - a curmudgenly old man in web years!

Holy hell does this ever need clarity - too bad SXSW doesn't target our customers as well :P

Part of the job of a web development company is to clarify buzz words and other such things for each individual client. No, an electrical company doesn't need to integrate social networking into its site, so they should be told that at a first meeting. But we certainly shouldn't put "an end to Web 2.0" -- all sites should try to adhere to the more basic elements of what I think the term means, mainly: strong, functional design; standards compliant code; and support of accessibility guidelines.

Yes Geoffrey, I agree with you in one sense. But what YOU think Web 2.0 stands for (compliant code, etc) is NOT what clients think Web 2.0 stands for (blogs and social networking). By eliminating the buzzwords and the term Web 2.0 itself, it would be easier to educate the clients about your version of 2.0.

The problem with buzzwords is that they can't be eliminated -- new ones will pop up in the industry and clients adopt them regardless of whether we want them to or not. In the specific case of "Web 2.0", the term is too widespread now to be ignored, so I guess I feel this panel would be good if it were nudged in the direction of defining and explaining what the term means, and how best to communicate that to different clients with different needs.

I like your intent, but agree with previous comments that the time might be better spent talking about communicating with clients without using buzzwords.. However, if you can get 10 venture capital people to stop using the term Web 3.0, perhaps this panel will be worth it after all.