Wikipedia article on Web 2.0

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Characteristics of "Web 2.0"

While interested parties continue to debate the definition of a Web 2.0 application, a Web 2.0 website may exhibit some basic common characteristics. These might include:

• "Network as platform" — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser. See also Web operating system.
• Users owning the data on a site and exercising control over that data.
• An architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in sharp contrast to hierarchical access-control in applications, in which systems categorize users into roles with varying degrees of functionality.
• A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.
• Some social-networking aspects.

The impossibility of excluding group-members who don’t contribute to the provision of goods from sharing profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and free-ride on the contribution of others.
The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web" and regards the Web-as-information-source as Web 1.0.