Web 2.0 brought us social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, as well as popularizing blogs like this one. It was a dramatic shift in thinking about the interweb, changing it from being a tool to being a place to play.

Web 2.1 expanded on that functionality by adding mashups, web-based applications like Google Docs, and expanding the collaborative sphere with tools like Microsoft’s Sharepoint. People started to look at how they could expand the boundaries of what they were working on, and how they could do things on the Internet instead of the local machine.

And today I read about some new items coming out now that I think of as Web 2.2 because it again changes how the world will see computing.

The technology in questions is an application that extends the web onto the user’s desktop. What we, as web surfers, have always done is to go to the Web to get our content. Now this is changing, and the content is coming to us instead.

The one I was playing with today is called Adobe Air, and it’s one of the first of a new type of interface. Essentially what happens is that you download a plug-in instead of a full application, which keeps the size small. Then you run it as a local application. In fact, the program is web-based, but it looks and feels like a program running on your desktop.

Imagine running Google Calendar this way. Right now, if you want to open G-Cal you have to open your web browser, navigate to the correct page, and possibly sign-in before doing anything. And then after all that, you still have extra controls in your window that you don’t use like the back button, the address bar, and the bookmark bar. Now take away the extra bars and buttons and the start up process. Change it so that you double-click an icon on your desktop, and then you’re running in 3 seconds flat.

That’s it.

Now picture this… because this is a web platform, it can be expanded to mobile platforms. So imagine being able to do this anywhere, anytime. With a myriad of applications, all of them small, fast, and responsive.

To take a look at the initial entries to this methodology, try Adobe’s Air platform, look at Microsoft’s Silverlight, or look at Mozilla’s Prism. Adobe Air works (I have it installed right now) and so does Silverlight, although the program/ plug-in list for both is short. Both are quick downloads, no more complicated than downloading a new version of Adobe Reader. Prism is still Beta.

Of course, this is going to completely change the way business does business. You’ll need to talk to your technical support provider about how this affects you, and how you can leverage the technology to benefit your business. Or you may end up being caught in the spider’s web of new technologies.