That said, I came across this post. I agree with your evolution characterization. I probably use the term Web 2.0 every day. Although I don’t like that term at all, no one knows what you’re talking about if you don’t use it, and even fewer if you do. I prefer the term Read/Write Web, although it’s a mouthful and I don’t get it out very often. The evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was going from a “Read Web” to a “Read/Write Web.”

I consider the gopher client and the gopher protocol as the “Revolution.” gopher taught us that the information didn’t have to be on my desktop or my server for me to be able to use it, making it very different from almost anything that went before it (e-mail and ftp). The Web/Hypertext Transfer Protocol came later and became the phenomenon that it is because of the Mosaic Web browser, the NCSA httpd server, and a better addressing structure (URLs). The revolution was the ability to link across machines and location and synthesize information from disparate sources. The evolution is the ability for anyone to do this without having to run a Web server.

It is undoubtedly true that anyone can now post anything and anyone with web access can reach it, but this has been true about the web for 20 years. Peer review will remain and for good reason, not to serve as a gate keeper but as a hallmark that the research is sound and valid. Sure there are benefits to this openness, in the old system some very good work might not get through due to elitism, on the other hand a lot of dreck was published solely because of a perceived expertise. More information is the scholar’s greatest resource.

We will of course have to reconsider what “publishing” means, do online journals count for tenure review?, but most disciplines and universities already began addressing this 10 years ago.

And let’s face it, “disrupting disciplinary orthodoxies” is only a temporary thing. New orthodoxies will arise. They always do.