The term Web 2.0 is a dreadful term, but it is useful being able to collate a series of ideals and standards under one banner. With this new ideal comes a common set of design patterns and colours. A starting point for any Web 2.0 design should be the logo, and here's how to do it using Adobe Photoshop. In this example I am using CS 2 though it should work in earlier versions, and hopefully in Photoshop Elements.
As usual, first create an image of the appropriate dimensions for your intended logo, and then use the Horizontal Type Tool (press T) to add text to the image. This text is of course the text that will be your logo.
Once your text is in place you will no need to duplicate the layer (by pressing J or clicking the layer icon in the layer palette) - this will later become the reflection for your logo, so for now you can hide it. Now on the text layer that is still showing, goto Blending Options and then choose a Gradient overlay. By dragging the mouse over the text you are able to reposition the gradient, once you are happy with the position click on the gradient bar so that you can change the colours from black to white. The colours you should change to at this stage should be the colour of the text in the first box, and white in the second.
Now, to get that two tone effect that you see on many self-aclaimed "Web 2.0" sites such as txtDrop use, you will need to create an elliptical marquee (press M multiple times to change selection type) that covers the bottom half of the text, dragging it into place if need be. Now, create a new layer and reset your colours back to black and white (press D) and make White the active colour (press X to swap). Once you have done this, you can now use the Fill Tool to fill the ellipse in white. Using the opacity slider in the Layer Palette will now allow you to adjust the transparency of this white ellipse until it blends just right with the text for your desired effect; the example uses 35%.
At this stage you will then want to trim the ellipse so that it is constrained to the text as much as possible - this is so that any background that is added will not be affected (too drastically) by the white ellipse. The next step is to use the other text layer to produce a wet floor style reflection as I previously covered in my Reflections in Photoshop article.
Rubbish