It doesn’t seem as if anybody has noticed yet, but what Web 2.0 (really, it’s Web 1.05, in my opinion) is all about is databases accessible from the Internet.

A weblog such as this is a database with scripting that generates a valid URL and a time/date stamp when a field is entered. A wiki is the same thing, but instead of publishing the time and date stamp, it allows rewriting. Mashing up of data is just porting data from two different databases to a third location and doing useful work on the data at its new home.

All of the recognisable Web 2.0 success stories are variations on the theme: MySpace and Facebook, blog farms. Flickr and YouTube, modified blog farms–databases all.

I won’t really start thinking of Web 2.0 as Web 2.0 until it does what it says on the tin by incorporating off-net data into their offerings, and start sending fused data streams outwards, both on and offline. When SMS and Skype seemlessly integrate into a web offering, we’ve got something. When UpMyStreet automatically texts me to stay out of this neighbourhood because of night-time crime statistics, then we’re onto something. Similarly, when I receive an SMS in a bar telling me that someone with my Facebook profile is in the same bar and is available for conversation, then Web 2.0 is here. Because for me, Web 2.0 is all about moving information off the Internet and into the real world and vice versa.

Sadly, the information assurance issues regarding databases are significant and so far less than amenable to easy solution. Databases will take notes of changes made to them, but unless the data is archived before the change is accepted, those notes are only useful in assigning responsibility for errors and crime. Archiving large scale databases prior to accepting any change would be a bit impractical.

If anybody can talk us all through a practical guide to effective information assurance for databases, the comments field is all yours…. here’s hoping.