"Web 2.0" is one of the Internet's most widely used (and abused) buzzwords. But as award-winning South Florida Website Designer Bruce Arnold observed in a recent installment of his RSS-syndicated series Web Design with Results in Mind™, the term has no specific definition. Consequently, it has meaning only in context. Here is how it is seen through a lens at Squidoo.com:

"'Web 2.0 design' has no definition, yet it is widely recognizable. Consisting of a light and 'easy on the eyes' look, Web 2.0 design utilizes whitespace with bright, vivid colors and gradients. Fonts play a major role in Web 2.0 - the 'H1' tag resurfaces as a major part of a web page's design, as it is typically a large, bright statement of what a page or paragraph is about. Links are bright and typically neon in color, and color combinations themselves are heavily contrasted against their backdrop (color patterns such as white, neon green and fuchsia make for an eye-appealing mix). Overall, Web 2.0 typically borrows from minimalist styles - where 'less is more.'"

That's not a bad start! But for web developers who design with results in mind, there's a lot more to "Web 2.0" than whitespace, bright colors and gradient shading. The flash-enhanced HTML generating all those minimalist masterpieces should dynamically enable business website owners to fully leverage the interactive potential of their web marketing and ecommerce investments ... along with that of the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) platforms supporting them. The web pages should be written in tableless XHTML and CSS for streamlined, search-friendly delivery of semantics separate from syntax, content apart from form. Every web page should be validated as compliant with all applicable W3C coding standards and accessibility guidelines. And last but far from least, every Web 2.0 website should be designed with real results in mind. The kind measured by bucks, not hugs. The kind that only comes from:

Persuasive messaging ... professional presentation ... and pervasive positioning.