Enough already!

I have to admit that I have been guilty of it myself, in fact I did it just the other day. Putting 2.0 at the end of a word to make it sound newer and more fancy, that is. But really, it's getting out of control. Web 2.0 has been talked about for years, but now the moniker seems to be applied to anything and everything. SiliconValleyWatcher quotes Flickr's Caterina Fake talking about BizDev 2.0, Cymfony has dedicated itself to exploring Influence 2.0, and my former colleague and creative genius James Warren has named his blog PR 2.0 (sorry JB!). I could go on.

It was originally a great idea, but like every great idea, it has been plagiarized and debased. Using 2.0 now is just lazy, derivative and a desperate attempt to associate with an industry trend. It reminds me of the times when every new start-up had e in front of its name, or when cloud terminology suddenly became popular in company names after Marc Andreessen launched Loudcloud.

Come on people - we're better than this!