Web 2.0: The Power Of The Web, OpenedWeb 2.0: The Power Of The Web, Opened

"How will you use the power of the Web?" That's the slogan for the Web 2.0 Expo, courtesy of both TechWeb and O'Reilly Media. I'm there this week to ask that question in a slightly different way: How will people use open source to use the power of the Web?

There's little question in my mind that open source technologies have made possible a good deal of what we call Web 2.0 (and soon Web 3.0 and beyond): MySQL, Ruby on Rails, Python, Perl, the list goes on. And it's not static, either: all of these technologies are in flux and being reshaped to meet the demands of the people who make use of them. (Case in point: Sun's JRuby on Rails, created to address -- among other things -- the conventional wisdom of Ruby as being great for prototyping but not so great for broad production use.)

I'll be blogging continuously from the show floor all week long, covering meetings with various vendors, luminaries, start-ups, and everything else that looks inviting. Among the people I'll be speaking with: eBay, the online office suite creators Zoho, and Nokia. Stay tuned.