What is Web 2.0?

We often get requests from clients asking us to improve their websites using modern Web 2.0 strategies. However, it's not always clear what the phrase means to a client. The original definition of "Web 2.0" came from an intangible ideology of utilizing the web as a communications platform rather than anything specific in terms of identifiable technologies. That said, there are several technologies that have collectively become synonymous with the label "Web 2.0."

The phrase was coined by Tim O’Reilly at a web conference in 2003. At that time, he called Web 2.0 "the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform." So, what does that mean? In his opening talk, O’Reilly said key Web 2.0 principles were as follows:

• Web as a platform
• Data as the driving force
• Networking effects created by an architecture of outside participation
• Open source web software development
• Lightweight business models
• Ease of picking up early adopters

Since that time, the original founders of the concept have criticized the use of the term in relation to specific technologies. Notable experts from the conference such as Tim Berners-Lee questions whether Web 2.0 has anything to do with technology features because so many of the perceived Web 2.0 technologies have been around since the early days of the Web.

As an example, some people think Web 2.0 means the idea of implementing user-contributed content within a website, however, Amazon has been publishing consumer reviews since 1995.  The problem with using the term is there's no official standard as to what the phrase means. It means radically different things to different people. Because of that, we don't really market the term ourselves, but we do generally know what our clients are looking for when asking for modern Web 2.0 strategies. No matter what you call them, there are a lot of great technologies that are worthy of implementation as long as there is a good business reason and a sound ROI. 

Here are some of the most popular technologies associated with Web 2.0:

Blogs – An online community diary where multiple users can submit commentary on a given topic.  Blog posts are typically managed by an administrator and are catered to a particular person's or organization's point of view.

Forums – Similar to blogs with the exception that forums are positioned as a community conversation rather than filtered commentary about a given topic.  Forum posts have points of views that range based on who is submitting the post.

Social Networking Software – Enables people to connect and/or collaborate using computer mediated communication. My Space is a great example of this technology.

User-Contributed Content – Blogs, forums, and social networks are all a part of this bucket.  Another example of user-contributed content includes Wikipedia.

AJAX – A set of scripts and programming tools used for creating interactive web applications. As a simple example, the technology allows users to drag and drop and/or move information around on a public webpage using their mouse. Google and Yahoo Maps have this feature. 

WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) – A graphical webpage editor.  A web development company needs to set up the WYSIWYG capability, but once done, it is faster for non-technical people to edit frequently changing content.

Folsonomy – A keyword tagging system that makes it easier to search and retrieve information on a webpage.  As an example, an administrator could tag newsletter attachments with keywords within or about the article making it easier to find when being searched.  Another example that also doubles as "user-contributed content" deals with the tagging of pictures or videos such as on YouTube or Flickr.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – a web design technique that makes web pages more search engine friendly, load faster, and display easier on phones/MP3 players.

ASP (Application Service Provider) – A software provider that hosts software on their local server. The provider will sell subscriptions to users who can access the software via the web.  This type of software distribution differs from desk top software where a customer loads the software on their local computer. ASP solutions require no software installation. They just require internet access, a subscription, and a login.

Podcasts – A media technology that pushes content to client devices such as MP3 players, phones, etc.

API's (Application Program Interface) – A source code interface that allows multiple applications to work together even though they are hosted on different servers/platforms.

XML – Similar to API's, XML technologies facilitate the sharing of data across different information systems.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) – A family of web feeds used to frequently update content such as blogs, news articles, and podcasts.  A good example would be MSN.  All of the news articles on the MSN home page are updated using RSS feeds from other publications.

Open source LAMP stack – Refers to a web development technique using common open source software programs such as Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Open source development allows programmers to use snippets of already developed code in order to build complex web applications with faster turnaround times.