FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Cisco Systems Changes Name to Csco Systmz

You know Web 2.0 has jumped the shark when a company whose core business is peddling switches and routers gratuitously doses its latest earnings call with Web 2.0 pixie dust.

Speaking to analysts and investors yesterday after reporting better-than-expected third-quarter sales and profits, Cisco CEO John Chambers peppered his call with Silicon Valley’s favorite buzzword, pitching social networking and the wider Web 2.0 phenomenon as an important driver of Internet traffic and thus of Cisco router and networking-gear sales. “We have spent the last six years preparing for the next wave of collaboration, enabling our Web 2.0,” Chambers said. “In our terms, Web 2.0 is simply the technologies that enable user collaboration. These technologies include Web services, Unified Communications, TelePresence, blogs, Wikis, pier-to-pier networks, podcast, MyShelf, etc. I do not think we are being overly optimistic when we say that the second phase of the Internet that is collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 will drive the industry for the next decade from an innovation, productivity, personalization and process change perspective.”

Chambers better hope so. Otherwise, its recent acquisitions of WebEx, social-networking technology developer Five Across and some assets of Utah Street Networks (another social-networking company) are going to look pretty silly.