What is Web 2.0

Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software

When surfing the internet, I often see the term Web 2.0 and I didn’t pay any attention to it. But I see this term too much that I have to study to know what Web 2.0 is. This is brief information about Web 2.0. I hope it’s helpful for who want to know what it is.

The phrase Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second-generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. It became popular following the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.

In the opening talk of the first Web 2.0 conference, Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle summarized what they saw as key principles of Web 2.0 applications:

the web as a platform

data as the driving force

network effects created by an architecture of participation

innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of "open source" development)

lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication

the end of the software-adoption cycle (the so-called perpetual beta)

software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of the "Long Tail"

ease of picking-up by early adopters

O'Reilly gave as examples: eBay, craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball and Adsense.

O'Reilly formulated their 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

While interested parties continue to debate the definition of a Web 2.0 application, a Web 2.0 website may exhibit some basic common characteristics. These might include:

"Network as platform" — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser. See also Web operating system.

Users owning the data on a site and exercising control over that data.

An architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in sharp contrast to hierarchical access-control in applications, in which systems categorize users into roles with varying degrees of functionality.

A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.

Some social-networking aspects.

For more information about Web 2.0 you can see the What Is Web 2.0 by Tim O'Reilly.