Google, the world’s leading search engine, shows about 40 million search queries for Web 2.0, the buzzword everyone in the Internet business today is talking about.
Then what in the world does Web 2.0 refer to? Is the Internet becoming a version of a software application? Even tech gurus are hesitant to answer these simple questions.

In fact, Web 2.0 is ill defined and its exact meaning is extremely elusive. Some even decry it as a marketing catchphrase, while others accept it as nothing but renewed conventional wisdom.

However, efforts are now underway to figure out the characteristics of the next-generation Internet and more and more folks are accepting the concept of Web 2.0.

Most experts pick brisk participation of Internet users in creating contents or the increased importance of collective intelligence as core factors of this.

In addition, they agree techsavvy South Koreans have already applied Web 2.0 to their Internet usage, starting years ago, even before the term was coined.

Advent of Web 2.0

There is no agreement on exactly what Web 2.0 means but there is an agreement on who first created the term - O’Reilly Media of the United States first used it in early 2004.

O’Reilly indicated that the dot.com bubble burst in the fall of 2001 signified the beginning of Web 2.0 and a flurry of new technological applications.

The most outstanding principle that the Web 2.0 companies share is that they use the power of the Internet in order to collaborate, communicate and grow, according to O’Reilly.

Under concepts that the Web is a platform, O’Reilly further defines Web 2.0 as a set of core principles and practices like participation, collective intelligence and rich user experiences, to name but a few.

Since then, Web 2.0 gained credibility in the tech world but the term caused confusion _ it does appear to mean different things to different people.

Observers point out Web 2.0 doesn’t have a hard boundary and it is a trend to explain the evolution of the Web from a producer- oriented world to a consumer- centered space.

“At its heart, Web 2.0 is about the participation of end users. They are no longer passive consumers of Web contents but are proactive producers,” said Kang Rok-hee, an analyst at Daishin Securities.

“In a sense, Web 2.0 lies on a natural development path of the Internet and the characteristics that go beyond the enhanced role of Internet users might be called Web 3.0 some time in the future,” Kang said.

Collective Intelligence

To understand the new crest of the Internet, Kang said that it is important to understand a host of Web 2.0-esque services such as Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is a copyright free online encyclopedia, which relies on volunteer writers from across the world to pen upside of 4 million articles in several languages.

“Wikipedia involves as many people as possible _ ordinary users create articles and others upgrade them around the clock. Readers become writers and that is a norm in the Web 2.0 era,” Kang said.

“The result is encouraging as the new-born Wikipedia boasts of a wide coverage and correctness comparable to the timehonored Encyclopedia Britannica,” Kang said.

Wikipedia came out in 2001 when enough people worldwide had gained access to the Internet at an affordable price.

This contrasts to Britannica, first published in around 1770, which many top-tier experts in each field embellished through seamless updates and revisions over time.

Naturally, concerns are flaring up that Wikipedia entries might not be reliable because unpaid amateur contributors can make miscues or unscrupulous writers may intentionally mess things up.

Late last year, however, the British-based journal Nature confirmed the reliability of Wikipedia by finding the site comes just as close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries.

Among articles covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum in the two encyclopedias, Nature reviewers conducted a side-by-side comparison to detect eight serious errors, four from each source alike.

“The openness of Wikipedia can be just as much of a strength as it can be a problem _ the openness that allows vandals to cause troubles also allows other contributors to restore order and self-police the site,” said Min Kyung-bae at Kyung Hee Cyber University.

“This amply demonstrates the power of collective intelligence and Web 2.0-based services. You can find a similar example in the emerging open-source programs against proprietary ones,” he said.

Korean Edge

Wayne Lee, an economist at Woori Securities, is saying Web 2.0 started in Korea a few years ago, even before the term was coined.

“Take a look at the so-called knowledge search services of NHN. It began in the early 2000s but it retains elements and components of Web 2.0,” Lee said.

“In addition, social networking sites like Cyworld and user created contents, which are huge in Korea, are all evidence that Web 2.0 is already burgeoning here,” he noted.

Under the knowledge search of NHN, users post their questions that are answered by other users _ creating a database that now totals tens of millions of entries.

The services were devised because Koreans often come up short when attempting to find information in their native tongue _ the number of Koreanlanguage sites is just 1 billion in comparison to 20 billion of English ones.

“The logic of the knowledge search is to extract what exists inside people’s brain to the Web site. It was designed to increase the Korean-language database,” NHN chief executive officer Chae Hwi-young told reporters late Sept. in a closed-door meeting.

Experts project Korea will be able to preempt the global thrust for Web 2.0 services and applications thanks to its tech-savvy children, called “digital natives,” who continue to spring up.

Digital native refers to the first generation of people who were born and grew up in the 21st century Internet era surrounded by gadgets such as computers and cell phones.

“With a majority of its preschoolers going online regularly, Korea is filled with digital natives who will spearhead the full-fledged advent of Web 2.0 era and beyond,” said Park Junghyun, a senior researcher at the LG Economic Research Institute.

Indeed, a majority of Korean children between the ages of three and five go online periodically _ a recent government survey found that 50.3 percent of this age group use the Internet at least once a month.

“Korea has bright prospects regarding Web 2.0. Currently, it already has an edge and digital natives are expected to sharpen it down the road,” he said.

According to the court, Zanfei and Crouse, with the help of South Dakota accounting firm Wohlenberg, Ritzman & Co. LLC, sold illegal or improper health care expense reimbursement plans -- the HI Plan and the HealthIER Plan -- to hundreds of employer-customers. The court concluded that the defendants knowingly misrepresented the tax benefits to employees and employers in selling these plans. According to the government’s complaint, the IRS estimated that the defendants'schemes cost the U.S. Treasury losses of between $12 million and $63 million and would cause ongoing losses of between $6 million to $24 million per year if the defendants were not stopped.

The court also found that the defendants told employers that they could avoid employment tax by contributing to such plans. Employees purportedly would also avoid employment tax and would receive the amounts back by seeking reimbursement of health care expenditures.

The court found that defendants made numerous false statements in promoting the plans and improperly administered them. For example, materials supplied to employees as part of defendants'plans listed "athletic shoes," "electrolysis," "health club fees," "soaps," and "day care" as reimbursable expenses. The court noted that expenses such as these are reimbursable as health care expenses only in rare circumstances. Moreover, the court found that the defendants often reimbursed medical expenses without substantiating them. The court also found that defendants'HI Plan was illegal because it allowed reimbursement for health insurance premiums as opposed to out-of-pocket health care expenses.

The court described IRS audits of two of defendants'customers -- both California firms, with more than 250 participating employees. These two firms used the scheme to under-report taxable wages by a combined amount exceeding $450,000 in one year, and had to file corrected employment tax returns and issue corrected W-2 forms to their employees. The companies had to advise their employees to file amended income tax returns to correct the errors. When the court issued the injunction order, it noted that the defendants have not accepted responsibility for the high level of processing errors in the plans and concluded that the defendants'history "provides no basis for believing that they have either the knowledge or the willingness to step carefully around any [legal] line."

The court also noted that the Department of Labor filed a suit in an Indiana federal court against Zanfei and Crouse for violating their fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by using employees'monthly health insurance premiums to pay for personal expenses. The federal court enjoined them from acting as ERISA fiduciaries.

Since 2001, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained more than 210 injunctions to stop the promotion of tax fraud schemes and the preparation of fraudulent returns. Information about these cases is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2006.htm. Information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/index.html.

"The jury determined that Merck acted appropriately in the development and marketing of VIOXX and that VIOXX did not substantially contribute to Mr. Dedrick's heart attack," said Phil Beck, of the law firm of Bartlit Beck, Merck's lead trial lawyer in the case, Dedrick v. Merck.

"He had multiple risk factors for a heart attack including a family history of cardiac problems, heavy smoking for many years and he had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes," Mr. Beck said. "In addition, he had significant atherosclerosis before he began taking VIOXX. Unfortunately, Mr. Dedrick would have suffered a heart attack whether he was taking VIOXX or not."

U.S. District Court Judge Eldon E. Fallon of the Eastern District of Louisiana, who is overseeing all of the federal court litigation, presided over the trial.

Merck faces thousands of lawsuits over the drug, which was pulled from the market in September 2004 after a study showed that it could double the risk of heart attack or stroke if taken for more than 18 months. This is the fifth federal trial to reach a verdict; Merck has won four of those cases, with the fifth decided in favor of the plaintiff. A federal judge, however, threw out the $50 million jury verdict in the Merck loss as "grossly excessive" and ordered a new trial to determine damages.

Merck won the first case, Plunkett v. Merck, in February. The damages portion of the verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the second federal case, Barnett v. Merck, was overturned by Judge Fallon. Merck won the third case, Smith v. Merck, in September and the fourth case, Mason v. Merck, in November. Last month, US District Judge Eldon Fallon, who is responsible for co-ordinating pre-trial procedures in the federal cases, rejected a bid to have all federal lawsuits against Merck brought in connection with Vioxx consolidated in a single national class action against the company.

One day after Florida death row inmate Angel Diaz endured a 34-minute-long - and apparently painful - execution, death penalty critics filed papers with the Florida Supreme Court seeking to once again halt the death penalty in the state. Petitioners, including numerous people currently on Florida’s death row roster, filed an emergency petition Thursday with the court asking it to exercise its All Writs jurisdiction and declare that Florida’s lethal injections procedures violate the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution.

Angel Diaz was executed Wednesday for the 1979 murder of a Miami strip club manager. Officials had to administer the sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride cocktail twice, during which time witnesses claim he grimaced, contorted, and gasped for breath. Officials claim that Diaz had a liver condition that slowed the absorption of the drugs, but that he was unconscious and experienced no pain. The US Supreme Court reviewed Florida’s lethal injection procedure earlier this year when they stayed the execution of Clarence Hill, who was ultimately executed in September. 

Governor Jeb Bush asked Corrections Secretary James McDonough to undertake a thorough review of the execution, including an autopsy and interviews with those in the death chamber. Diaz' lawyer filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of death row inmates, asking the Florida Supreme Court to rule that the state's lethal injection procedure is unconstitutional.

The New Jersey Legislature passed a bill Thursday allowing same-sex civil unions in response to a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in October that said the state legislature had 180 days to decide whether the state would recognize same-sex marriage or another form of civil partnership.

The measure was approved by the state Assembly 56-19 and passed the Senate 23-12. The bill says:

The Legislature has chosen to establish civil unions by amending the current marriage statute to include same-sex couples. In doing so, the Legislature is continuing its longstanding history of insuring equality under the laws for all New Jersey citizens by providing same-sex couples with the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples who choose to marry.

Governor Jon Corzine has said he would sign the measure into law. Gay rights advocates welcome the bill as a step forward. But they also say they will continue to push for the right to marry.

William James Victor Garrison, a resident of Culpeper, Va., was today charged by federal grand jury with conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and with making a false statement to a federal investigative agent during the course of an investigation. The indictment stems from Garrison’s participation in illegal elk hunting on the Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico during 2003. The conspiracy charge involving the Lacey Act, a federal wildlife enforcement statute, carries a maximum penalty of up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. The false statement charge carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Valles Caldera National Preserve is an 8,900 acre property situated inside of a collapsed crater northwest of Santa Fe, N.M. The preserve is home to large populations of big game animals including elk, antelope and oryx. Strict regulations govern the hunting of these animals as they are prized among big game sportsman. The indictment alleges Garrison and members of his hunting party shot and killed bull elk, without permits, in violation of state law. At least one of these elk was then transported through interstate commerce in violation of the Lacey Act.

Federal authorities have already convicted six other hunters in Virginia and two additional hunters and guides in New Mexico related to this investigation.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

The investigation was led by Special Agents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia, and the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Related cases have been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices in both the Eastern District of Virginia and the District of New Mexico.