I am beginning to understand what Web 2.0 actually is: a break away from the 20th Century.

Similar to the decadent and uncertain times of impending change in the late 19th Century, Web 2.0 has become our fin de siecle. Outside of these circumstances the similarities end.

The tools of the time were not code, but art and poetry. Mallarmé had his intimate salons. We have our media and our conversations floating in the ether: tagged, linked, and networked with other similar thinkers. APIs have replaced Absinthe.