<p>Open up the websites of your favorite web2.0 applications or social networks. Take only one second looking at each. Finally you&#8217;ll probably take the conclusion that there are design patterns in all of them. The squared corners, the reflection, gradients, badges, you name it&#8230; And every new <i>web2.0site</i> that comes up has this proven-to-work design. But this is not innovative in any way, is it?</p>

<p>Elliot Jay Stocks has a pretty awesome presentation on this called <a href="http://elliotjaystocks.com/blog/archive/2007/destroy-the-web-20-look-future-of-web-design-new-york/">Destroy the web2.0 look</a>  that he gave at <a href="http://www.futureofwebdesign.com/">Future of Web Design</a>. If you are a webdesigner, this is a must-read! If you are not, well&#8230; read it anyway!</p>

<p>I strongly agree with Elliot, since I&#8217;m tired of seeing all these websites look the same. If they want to have their own identity and not yet another web service, they have to engineer their own design. Web2.0 is not about that gradients or squared corners, it&#8217;s about focusing the web on the users and the relations between them (in my humble opinion). Of course there are several things that come from this, one of them being the simpleness of the design, so that the content is not obfuscated. But there are unlimited ways of achieving that, you just have to let your inner artist do his thing.</p>