BBC says “two point oh” is how you should say it
by Mike Butcher
on February 4, 2008

I feel now I can sleep well at night, secure in the knowledge that no less a body than the BBC has now pronounced upon one of the great questions of our time. How to actually say “Web 2.0″. Since two thirds of 500 BBC people surveyed internally think it should be “two point oh”, and ZDNet produced the same result last year, that seems to have settled the matter. However, I have to ask, did no-one suggest saying “Web 2″? And how do we refer to a “Mobile 2.0″ project or company? “Mobile two point oh”. I know that when I am taking about a concept I might refer to a “two dot oh idea”.

Oh no, I can feel the nightmares returning again… Just don’t ask for “Gramophone 2.0″, OK Grandad?

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  • I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog

    Of course it’s Two point Oh. Web 2 would be a movie. Web 2: Web Harderer. As for the point, it’s ‘point’, not ‘dot’ because it’s used in the sense of a decimal point, not a full stop. Unless you say ’4 dot 5 times 1 dot 5 is 6 dot 75.’

    Good to see the licence fee being put to good use as always.

  • http://digitalbiographer.com David Petherick

    The BBC always have their finger on the pulse.

    It’s just that sometimes, they have their finger on the pulse of a rotten skanky corpse everyone’s forgotten about or was always irrelevant anyway.

    And I am posting to spam my blog.

  • http://digitalbiographer.com David Petherick

    Wait- did you see the new BBC logo?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/img/bbc2dot0.png

  • http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01 steve clayton

    a whole new survey will be required when we shift to 3.0 of course :)

  • http://twitter.com/mikebutcher Mike Butcher

    Darn, I forgot the logo! Adding it now. :-)

  • Jamiroquai

    Its the most annoying thing in the world to hear anything but web two point oh.

    “web two”? wtf?

  • http://digitalbiographer.com David Petherick

    Why don’t we all gang together and tell them it’s now 2.01? ;-)

  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/ Alan Connor (BBC Internet Blog)

    The logo is, er, not entirely serious or official. Especially as the left hand side of it is no longer on the new homepage. ;)

  • http://twitter.com/mikebutcher Mike Butcher

    Alan – I am surprised the BBC is treating such a serious matter in such a flippant manner. After surveying 500 of its most prestigious staff and using up valuable pronunciation time, I’d have hoped for a more lasting tribute to the great “2.0″. In fact I am looking forward to the launch of “BBC Channel 2.0″ to replace BBC 3′s output of breast enhancement shows.

  • http://twopointoh.co.uk Paul Lomax

    I’m glad I named my blog correctly then!

    I used to say ‘two point naught’ but then I discovered that most yanks didn’t know what the hell a ‘naught’ was…

  • Richard

    Maybe it is just me and I am just a pedant should it not be two dot zero two point zero, I was always under the impression that “oh” was the letter not the number?

  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/ Alan Connor (BBC Internet Blog)

    Mike, as you well know, there has been no tribute because this is part of a conversation about this issue which concerns us all, not some old-fashioned patrician announcement. (Personally, I use the different variants interchangeably, depending on which is most likely to cause irritation and vexation.)

  • http://www.andrewskinner.name Andrew

    Always great to see the license fee being spent of cutting edge research ;)

  • http://twitter.com/mikebutcher Mike Butcher

    Alan – I’m delighted to hear the BBC is sorting out the most essential part of the Web 2.0 conversation first, namely how to *say* it. I look forward to a time when the Beeb actually *does* it – like opening up the data taxpayers have already paid for so that UK startups can leverage this and generate the kind of creative economy the UK sorely needs. Like retaining people like Tom Coates (now with Yahoo Brickhouse building FireEagle which will be a world-beating location data technology) or Matt Locke (now with Channel 4 re-engineering the entire education market online) or Ben Metcalfe (now building MySace/ OpenSocial / Seesmic). Like creating an application platform as Bebo/MySpace/Facenook have created so that UK developers can flourish. Like having a few more internal surveys about things that actually matter, right? Let’s have a few more conversations about that, eh?

  • http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/ Alan Connor (BBC Internet Blog)

    Oh, it’s turned serious. I should have included more emoticons.

    These are good questions. I am far too powerless and ignorant to address them, but I can away and find out who’s not…

  • Nick Reynolds (editor, BBC Internet Blog)

    There are I think a few conversations about this very subject on BBC Backstage.

    http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/

  • Nick Reynolds (editor, BBC Internet Blog)

    Also Mike if you would like to come for a chat and find out more about what the BBC is doing in this area, please do get in touch.

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