Web 2.0
The collapse of the dot-com period in 2001 could be marked as a turning point in the history of the internet. It was in 2005, the phrase “Web 2.0" was coined in a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly, realized that the web had become more important than ever, with stimulating new applications and sites popping up every now and then.
As against “Web 1.0” the phrase “Web 2.0” alludes to software upgrades, and is an improved form of the World Wide Web. It favors technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, RSS feeds, social software, Web APIs, Web standards and online Web services that hint at an important change in web usage.
Characteristics of "Web 2.0"
- Network as platform – delivering, and also allowing users to use, applications completely through a browser.
- The Web 2.0 users having full control of the data and owning the data on the site.
- A design of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.
- A user-friendly, interactive interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.
- Some social-networking aspects.
- Inexpensive expansion of network in the future.
- Connecting collective intelligence
- Right to remix data source and data transformations.
- It supplies services not packaged software.
- Innovation in assembly of systems and sites collected by putting together features from distributed, independent developers.
- Software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of The Long Tail.
The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming computing platforms serving web applications to end-users.
Tim O’Reilly’s “four plus one" levels in the hierarchy of Web 2.0
Level 3 applications, which could only exist on the Internet, sourcing their power from the human interactions and association and network effects Web 2.0 makes possible, and the software gets better the more people use it. O'Reilly gives as examples: eBay, craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball, and Adsense.
Level 2 applications, which can operate offline but which get benefits from going online, example Flickr, which benefits from its shared photo-database and from its community-generated tag database.
Level 1 applications, also available offline but which gain features online. O'Reilly pointed to Writely (since 10 October 2006: Google Docs & Spreadsheets, offering group-editing capability online) and iTunes (because of its music-store portion).
Level 0 applications would work as well offline. O'Reilly gave the examples of MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps. Mapping applications using contributions from users to advantage can rank as level 2.
Non-web applications like email, instant-messaging clients and the telephone.
The multifaceted and evolving technology infrastructure of Web 2.0 includes content-syndication, messaging-protocols, server-software, standards-based browsers with plugins and extensions, and various client-applications. These approaches, both conflicting and complimentary, provide Web 2.0 with creation, information-storage, and distribution capabilities that surpass the web-sites expectations of the public.