Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

When the dust clears, historians will determine that the term Web 2.0 was popularized by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International as the name for a series of conferences that started in October 2004. The thing is so exclusive that registration is now by invitation only. But what is the "Web 2.0" at the core of the conference concept? Well, read this backgrounder by Tim O'Reilly and you'll be on firmer ground by the end of it. Note though, that aside from the nerdy stuff, the term Web 2.0 has acquired a generic feel and is thrown about by those talking and writing about everything from community spaces to development technologies.

Enter Tom Raftery with his plans for a conference on 8 June in Cork that used the expressions "Web 2.0" and "Conference" in the same breath. It's now been presented to the public with the somewhat unwieldy title "it@cork Web 2.0 half day Conference". But that was enough to get our learned friends across the Atlantic issuing threatening letters, which claimed that "Web 2.0" has been trademarked. This has brought down a firestorm upon O'Reilly's head and the outrage is palpable. To give you an idea of how grave the matter is, the EU is being invoked in Tom's name. Looks like we've got another trans-Atlantic affray in the making here. But not everyone is siding with the Raftery faction. Nicolas Carr is calling those baying for O'Reilly's blood "a lynch mob".

Seeing that Tim's got a castle in Kerry and Tom's got a stronghold in Cork, there's enough common ground for a treaty here. Or does it have to be war?