Most of the articles here on Xeep focus on web sites that fancy themselves a part of Web 2.0.  Before we talk about Web 2.0.  It is important to differentiate it from what came before.   The first wave of the web, now commonly referred to as Web 1.0, was primarily about simply presenting information on a web page.   There was little interaction between the publisher or owner of a web site and his or her users.  The content presented was primarily static.

Web 2.0 is a concept, not a particular place, technology, or program.   It is championed by O’Reilly Media and their leader Tim O’Reilly, a well respected technology guru.  He officially defines Web 2.0 as “design patterns and business models for the next generation of software,” which, to me, means almost nothing.

What then is Web 2.0?  For me Web 2.0 sites and solutions are those that integrate all the things that were missing from Web 1.0.  They include the following concepts and functionality:

  • Better user participation including user generated content, user voting, user submission and sharing (i.e. community submitted and edited news sites like Digg.com).
  • Syndication that allows information from a web site to be easily extracted and used on other web sites and in other programs  (i.e. RSS and the Feedburner web site).
  • Tagging data to make it easy to find (i.e Flickr and Technorati).
  • Improved useability that enables the web to give users a similar experience to desktop programs.
  • Open technology standards that allow information to be easily shared across web sites (i.e. XML, RSS, etc)

In summary, it is important to note that Web 2.0 is a concept, and one that is understood in a different way by different people.   With this short description above you are now armed with the basics to discuss this around the water cooler with your techno-savvy colleagues and the people from the IT department.

Want to know more?  Try the O’Reilly article on Web 2.0.

 

 

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Commentary

  1. RichardSF wrote on 03. Jun 2006

    There is a lot of hype around the so-called Web 2.0. It is really nothing more than the normal progression of the development of the web, and there are many Web 2.0 ideas out there that are of dubious value and will join the trash heap with the many Web 1.0, Internet Bubble sites that failed.

  2. SamIAm wrote on 04. Jun 2006

    I agree with RichardSF, this is an evolution not a revolution. It is primarily hyped by the media, gives them something sexy to write about.

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