Web 2.0 is a term that has been over hyped, and over used, and even applied to describe the minimalist, round cornered style of certain websites, as well as the whole new Web environment that it was coined for. You will even see Web 2.2, 2.3 or 3.0 these days. So what is it?
Where does it come from?
The origin of Web 2.0 comes from a brainstorming session that led to a series of Web development conferences started in 2004 by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International (now owned by CMP Media). CMP Media in fact owns Web 2.0 as a service mark for conferences. They caused quite a stir a few months ago when they sent a cease and desist letter to IT@cork, a non-profit organization, telling them to stop using the term in a conference they had arranged. This move was incorrectly interpreted by many people as a claim by CMP for exclusive usage of the term Web 2.0. CMP was, in fact, only claiming exclusive use of the term for conferences. (Claims are already being made for Web 3.0, but that’s another story.)
The best explanation I could find was on O’Reilly’s website. Some suggest it’s just a marketing buzzword (and it’s regularly misused that way) but it is much more important, and all about viewing the web as an applications platform.
One of the shorthand ways to describe what it’s all about comes from this extract from his article:
”In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
DoubleClick –> Google AdSense
Ofoto –> Flickr
Akamai –> BitTorrent
mp3.com –> Napster
Britannica Online –> Wikipedia
personal websites –> blogging
evite –> upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation –> search engine optimization
page views –> cost per click
screen scraping –> web services
publishing –> participation
content management systems –> wikis
directories (taxonomy) –> tagging (”folksonomy”)
stickiness –> syndication
The list went on and on. But what was it that made us identify one application or approach as “Web 1.0″ and another as “Web 2.0″?”
Tim’s article goes on to explain that the characteristics of Web 2.0 companies include offering scalable services rather than packaged software. Their approach will harness collective intelligence in some way - from blogging to the Open Source Software model. They will use some form of customer self service model, and adopt a very different, “lighter” business model compared to traditional software vendors.
Wikipedia’s definition states that “Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online.” It goes on further to say that, “In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages.” This definition implies that Web 2.0 not only improves the way users interact with each other, and but also adds new technologies that provide a richer user experience.
It’s not just technology
So part of the confusion in defining Web 2.0 is the mixture of new technology, combined with new ways of working. Web 2.0 has a technology component, but is more about how people use the Web. It is about new Web techniques that allow people to easily communicate and share information with each other - a way of working characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects.
A lot of the initial emphasis of Web 2.0 was on personal users and consumers and how they use the Web on the public Internet. Web 2.0 is, however, beginning to have an increasing impact on how business and corporate users collaborate and share information. Technologies and techniques such as RSS, wikis and blogging are already being used by enterprise users. The information produced is not only for internal consumption, but also external usage.
There are a plethora of Web 2.0 products. They include MySpace, wikis and bloging platforms, as well as Flickr for storing and sharing photographs, or business networking services like Linkedin or Upcoming.org. There is whole subset of Web 2.0 products that address Office software and business productivity - find out about Office 2.0 here. Here are a few logos of the popular products:
Web 2.0 resources:
Web 2.0 Summit
Dion Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog
ZDNet Enterprise Web 2.0 Blog
ZDNet Web 2.0 Explorer
Web 2.0 Workgroup
Read/Write Web’s List of Web 2.0 Lists:
