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It's been almost three months since my last major roundup of Web 2.0 software and I thought it's about time to release another update. The pace of innovation in the next generation of online software has continued unabated and we've seen dozens upon dozens of new entries into the market since December. And while a few of the market niches are starting to fill up, almost as often as not these new software products are inventing completely new spaces in which to serve. It's been thrilling to watch TechCrunch and eHub continue to announce new product after new product. I personally get at least an e-mail a day asking me to take a look at new applications. This article will reward many of you who have waiting so patiently.

The ideas in the Web 2.0 best practice set continue to capture the imagination of software creators everywhere. Sometimes it seems like you can't turn around without discovering some great new, pervasive, online software being released for the world to use. But the core ideas of Web 2.0 are also spreading and being co-oped at a surprisingly rapid pace into a wider community that's seizing on the value proposition being offered.

The Web is now packed with numerous examples of useful, potent, and widely used social software including well-known examples like Wikipedia, del.icio.us, digg, and Wordpress. There is also a growing body of next-generation social software exemplars such as AllPeers, RubHub, Squidoo, and Wink. For a fairly new and more objective top 10 social software list, see here by Ross Mayfield.

Many folks are working towards getting at the heart of the Web 2.0 revolution. I agree that visualizations such as Tim O'Reilly's or Dion Hinchcliffe's are not simple enough — they're too jargon-filled and don't do much to describe the big picture in human-readable terms. I really like Richard MacManus's breakdown: "Web 2.0 is really about normal everyday people using the Web and creating things on it - forget the acronyms." Susan Mernit also captures this well: "The heart of Web 2.0 is the user… The tools power it, but the people do it."

It's getting towards the end of the year and I'm feeling the need to take stock of where we've actually come with Web 2.0 in the last 12 months. So much has happened in this space recently and a tidal wave of innovative, high-quality software has been released this year. So much in fact, that it's hard to keep track of it all. While many of us talk about Web 2.0 ideas, there's no substitute for pointing to concrete examples. And this also gives credit where credit is due to all the hard-working folks building the next generation of the Web.

Social software.

近年來社會軟體的發展頗受重視，好比我每天在使用的flickr。 搞好社會關係，不妨從學習使用社會軟體開始做起！