This German blog linked here and I saw his post today on “2.0 logos”.  Which took me here and then here.  I am no longer sure where the source of all this is, although this link (same as above it seems) is popular on delicious, so that’s probably who deserves the credit…

Some clever designers took some traditional companies and “2.0-ized” their logos.  I was LOLing all over the place. Here are my favorites:

Now, this is already heavily “dugg” and I sincerely doubt anyone who has discovered my little blog hasn’t seen it already (although if this is your discovery moment, go enjoy, it’s good stuff).  The question it raises to me is: can Web 2.0 really just defined by a logo?  Tim O’Reilly wrote an elongated article on the topic last year (which is a really really long read and pretty much boils down to something to the effect of “tagging and wikis are 2.0, and Ofoto sucks because it’s older and the founders don’t blog”).

Funniest thing for me is my 2nd post when just getting started with the blog (pre-alpha!) was exactly on the “non-logo” that I feel most Web 2.0 companies use.  The real problem with this whole concept (beyond the silliness of today’s post) is that these non-logos (or the effective complete replication of the exact same theme over and over again) is what contributes to the massive “chicken and egg” problem most Web 2.0 ventures are going to face. 

Right about now, the average Web 2.0 CEO is either an engineer or an “idea person” whose marketing plan sounds something like: “well, we’ll just have to market the site to get our first 2 million users next month.”  I am going to be fairly blunt when I say: (1) having the same ‘recurring theme’ logo is not helping you grow your business, and (2) when you have a business model predicated on massive user growth, being distinct is better than being similar (psst, I just saved you from reading 160 pages of Seth’s book, which you should just go read anyway, but you’ll get to roughly the same conclusion).

I’ll add (3) your logo is your company’s identity.  It should be more than something you can make with WordArt.

What if a bunch of Web 2.0 companies had their logos “1.0-ized?”  Could it be done?