The selection process for DEMOfall 08 (RWW is a media partner) is coming to a close and Chris Shipley has been blogging her thoughts about it. She's identified a number of trends in the 'class of DEMOfall 2008', one of which is this claim: the Web 2.0 cycle has come to a close. She also makes a case for an end to the 'free' model for web businesses.

I'm not sure that I buy either argument.

After first dismissing the notion of 'web 2.0' ("Web 2.0 has been more of a hype cycle than a business cycle"), Chris Shipley goes on to say that the Social Web has nonetheless delivered a solid platform:

"But the social Web - the true definition, we think, of this most recent wave - has sparked tremendous innovation. It has given us the "operating systems" for social networks, the culture of conversation and engagement, the discipline of rapid and disruptive development, and the technology basis on which to build reliable, scalable Web applications. In short, it's delivered a platform on which to build the next phase of the Web."

It's arguable whether there's much difference