It’s something that everyone seems to be talking about, so what is this much ballyhooed Web 2.0? First of all, it means different things to different people, and some might say it really means nothing at all. Those who use the term are really just talking about the so-called second generation of the World Wide Web in which collaboration and sharing are the main focus.

Nothing about the technology that powers the web has changed or really improved all that much, but this “new version” of the web is marked by websites and services that focus on collaboration and user interaction.

If you can comment on it, upload to it or make friends by using it then it might just be part of Web 2.0. Examples include photo sharing site Flickr, user written encyclopedia Wikipedia, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, link and bookmark sharing site del.icio.us and blogs (especially when users are encouraged to add their comments to posts).

Example of a tag cloud from link sharing site del.icio.us

Another component of Web 2.0 are folksonomies. Most people find information on the web via a search engine such as Google. Folksonomies are another way that some sites use to enable users to find content; essentially they are a taxonomy for the people and by the people. Information on websites is categorized by users into keywords generally called tags. These tags are used to locate and organize relevant content. Folksonomies are generally used by blogs and wikis (another type of collaborative website generally used for collecting and distributing easily searchable information).

After the dot-com boom and subsequent bust some may have thought the heyday of the Internet era was over. From the ashes of that period, the notion of Web 2.0 has seen businesses embrace the web as a platform on which to deliver useful applications to consumers, not just an information repository or marketing outlet.

Some (including World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee) argue that many so-called features of Web 2.0 have really been around all along, and that the web has always been a place fostering user collaboration and interaction. So whether you think that it’s just a marketing buzzword, or the beginning of a new technological era, the real question to consider is what can Web 2.0 do for you and your business?

For more information on Web 2.0 check out these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
http://www.oreillynet.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy

Questions or comments? Contact Leslye at leslye@reflectiondigital.com