Web 2.0’s defining shift was user-generated content on accessible platforms

Evidence

While the term Web 2.0 quickly became a cliché, its underlying transformation was real. User-generated content reshaped the internet in profound ways. Services like Friendster (2002), Myspace (2003), and Facebook (2004) made online spaces intuitive, encouraging users to create profiles, share photos, and connect with real-life friends. YouTube, launched in 2005, allowed anyone with a camera to upload videos and share them with the world. A year later, the “microblogging” service Twitter went live, allowing anonymous users to connect with one another over 140-character posts. Digital commerce also became easier for small-scale transactions thanks to the growth of PayPal, run by the likes of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Reid Hoffman. With the immediate success of these services, Time chose “you”—that is, the entire public—as its 2006 Person of the Year. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 177

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to reader’s stated interest in internet-collapsed distribution as a mechanism of the omnivore monoculture — this sets the infrastructure stage. — connects to: Web 2.0 was marketed in revolutionary, democratizing rhetoric across media and academia — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 51