What is Web 2.0?

[The_Big_K]

CEans,

Web 2.0 - you must have heard/read about it on the Internet. If not, don't worry. I was just wondering what are your ideas about Web 2.0? Do post your ideas & let's see what everyone thinks about Web 2.0.
I'll post findings of my detailed study ( ) on Web 2.0 and what it actually means.
So get started !

-The Big K-

[ash]

Ah, Web 2.0?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE



I'm thinking Web 2.0 is the natural evolution of Internet. With so many innovative and new things popping up, its going to interesting. But, thats all I know about Web 2.0 Would really appreciate your findings, Big K.

I believe IPv6 came just in time for Web 2.0 to work well, yea?

[The_Big_K]

Yep! I conducted a session on Web 2.0 and was surprised that most of the engineers didn't know what Web 2.0 is about. I'm writing an article for all our fellow CEans. Just give me a day or two to work on it

Thanks for the link!

-The Big K-

[The_Big_K]

CEans,

Imagine how would our life be without Internet! I bet you do want to know what’s new with the world of Internet. Did you know that the WWW’s version 2 is around? Have you heard about Web 2.0? Do you care?

If you believe that something like Web 2.0 exists, you are right. If you think that there no such thing like Web 2.0, you are right. What am I talking about? Well, let’s see what is Web 2.0 all about!

Web is a medium

Pretty obvious, eh? Web (the world wide one) is a medium just like Newspaper, Radio & Television. Understand that each of these medium has redefined the way we exchange information. You will agree that the Internet is a very powerful medium as it combines the best of Newspapers, Radio & Television. Web 2.0 is all about better understanding of this medium! Read on & I will make my point clearer.

Traditionally, whenever a new medium is introduced, people will try to imitate the things they did on the older medium on the newer one, in a better way. For example, Radio added ‘sound’ to the ‘news’ of the newspapers, television added ‘video’ to the audio news and now, the web combines text with audio & video! Shall I say, we have started realizing the true capabilities of this medium? If your answer is yes, my job is simplified. Web 2.0 is about realizing the true capabilities of this powerful medium called “Internet”.

Who coined the term ‘Web 2.0’?

The smart folks @ O’Reilly, the publishers of technical books were the ones who came up with this term. If you are a computer engineer, I need not tell you about O’Reilly. You must have read at least one book published by O’Reilly. In 2004, O’Reilly organized a big conference for the techies around the world to discuss where the Web is moving. They needed a fancy name for the conference and they came up with “Web 2.0 Conference” . Most of the folks, who attended the conference, didn’t really understand what Web 2.0 meant, yet they went back home and started saying that their websites are Web 2.0 compliant!

So, O’Reilly went back to work to define what Web 2.0 actually meant. They came up with following bullets which can be called as the characteristics of Web 2.0 –

• The Web as platform
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Data is the next Intel Inside
• End of Software Release Cycle
• Lightweight programming models
• Software above the level of single device
• Rich user experiences

Details about these points can be obtained HERE.

Don’t worry, I know above points did not make much sense to you. So I’m going to simply everything for you. Read on...

Websites that replace your desktop applications

Have you used Google Maps or Google Docs/Spreadsheet? What’s so cool & different about these websites (or applications?)? Well, these are the websites that have the capability to replace your desktop applications. For example, for the basic text editing needs, you need not have a powerful text editor ‘installed’ on your desktop. With a computer & Internet connection, no matter where you are, you can just log on to Google Docs & compose your document online. Not only that, you can even store it on the web so that you need not worry about saving/copying it to CD or PEN drive.

The Crowd Knows Better!

Let’s take example of our own CE Forums. If you need help on anything, you just have to post your question in appropriate section of CE Forums – that’s it. Engineers from various parts of world are ready to help you. Together, we make a better world! That’s possible because communities have power.

The point I’m trying to make is very simple. Everyone benefits from the wisdom of crowds. Web 2.0 is about websites that make this possible. So CE Forums, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google Maps are all examples of Web 2.0. Got the point?

Make the access easy

Traditionally, it was necessary to visit the website to exchange data with the website. So if you wanted to read a blog, you had to type the URL in your browser & access the website. But with the latest technologies such as RSS we no longer have to visit the websites. Many websites publish their feeds and you just have to subscribe to them. You can then use your mail client or feed reader to read the stuff without actually accessing the website. Isn’t that wonderful?

In order to summarize the discussion, I present following points –

Web 2.0 is:

• Not a ‘technology’ as such
• About building richer websites that utilize the power of Internet & can replace the desktop applications
• Relies on the value that is generated by user participation
• About being open for data/information exchange

I hope I could give you some idea about Web 2.0. If you have questions, feel free to post in this thread. I’ll try to answer them. If you liked the article, do forward the link to your friends

Your comments/suggestions are welcome! HaPpy Web 2.0’ing

-The Big K-

[xheavenlyx]

Wow, thats informative!! good work Biggie. I am presently researching on making my site/blog Google friendly SEO, Sitemaps, Tags, Metainfo etc etc! Search Engine in itself is a huge advancement for Web 2.0.

Here is another link:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/orei...is-web-20.html

[Elisa]

Thanks for the article, Mr. K! I did not know about Web 2.0 but now I have a clear idea. I guess the tag cloud is also something that tells us that a website is Web 2.0. I used to be a regular digg'er.

[Rocker]

Yeh its much more than the rounded corners & bigger fonts