As a professional blogger, I have spent more time than I care to think about interacting on the so-called Web 2.0 social networking platforms. Some one, somewhere coined the term “Web 2.0” and turned it into something it could never live up to. I hate the term Web 2.0 and can’t wait until we move onto 3.0. I hate the term almost as much as I hate the terms “canny investor” or “web-savvy.”

Why on earth would I hate those terms you may ask yourselves? It’s a bit like the affectionate term coined for American servicemen based in England during the second world war. “Over-paid, over-sexed, and over-here.” In this case, it’s “Over-used, over-hyped and over-done.” I hate them like I hate the song that used to be my favorite song until I listened to it 300 times.

How many times have you heard the advice that to be successful, you need to submit your content to a “Web 2.0 social networking site.”Well, guess what? Every one has submitted their content to one and now the places are full of nothing but garbage. "Nobody wants to advertise next to crap," says Andrew Keen, author of "The Cult of the Amateur," a jeremiad against the ills of the unregulated Web.Part of the problem is their very openness – the regulators and moderators spend 100% of their time trying to keep out the spammers and the scammers.

Facebook

Facebook has even gone to the trouble of now making it clear that real estate agents are no longer welcome to submit their listings on the market place. Why? Because every real estate agent on the planet submitted their listing at once and they had 3 million listings. Actually, I am guessing on the numbers, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Mahalo

Mahalo has been touted as a user powered search engine that will outperform google. But when you take a look at today’s Mahalo’s “Today’s Top Ten Pages,” this is what you get:

1. Super Smash Bros Brawl Unlockable Characters
2. Super Smash Bros Brawl Walkthrough
3. Lost Odyssey Walkthrough
4. Army of Two Walkthrough
5. Lindsay Lohan New York Magazine
6. How to Play Guitar for Newbies
7. Super Smash Bros Brawl Sonic
8. God of War Chains of Olympus Walkthrough
9. Crazypicssite.com
10. Big Brother 9 Spoilers

It’s great if all you are looking for is computer game cheats and celebrity upskirt photos.

YouTube

A few days ago, I wrote a post entitled “Five questions to ask yourself before you upload your luxury property to youtube.” At the time of writing that post, there were 25,300 videos on youtube tagged with “Real Estate.” Today, writing this, there are 27,500. This is something I will continue to watch.

These places are largely populated by teenagers with time on their hands, professional bloggers trying to get their work noticed and teams of Indians whose job it is to leave comments and “submit their content to web 2.0 social networking sites.”

So what is the alternative? Newsweek suggests it is time for “The revenge of the experts.” And I agree. Where should you submit your content – to an expert, not to a site populated by amateurs, teenagers and spammers with an agenda. For goodness’ sake – use a professional.

Bye-bye Web 2.0 - And good riddance as far as I’m concerned.

If you want an alternative viewpoint, Dion Hinchcliffe will give you one. Not content with just the web he can offer you media 2.0 all the way through to democracy 2.0. Although I wasn’t aware we had moved on from 1.0

And thanks to blogoscoped for the image at the top, who suggest you better start working on 4.0 about now.