Fine, but what about stuff that has a finite audience, that exist way down the long tail? If time and energy is put into building Web 2.0 apps around this data, is anyone better served, especially if the current web app is more than sufficient? The promise here is that Web 2.0 apps will find new and previu\ously unconsdidered audiences for the material and the open access to the data will somehow attract remixers.
O’Reilly Radar > Web 2.0: Compact Definition?
Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.
This may be true, but keep in mind that there is only one pie and no matter how many ways you slice it, it won’t become a cake. I think that some data on the web has, by its very definition, a finite audience and little value in a remix sort of way. Now the data may not be reaching all of its finite audience and the technologies of Web 2.0 may increase the ability to reach its audience, but there is still a limit.