After the term was coined, it became a talk of the web and became ubiquitous. Everyone started using it with or without an understanding of what is Web 2.0.
Basic element of Web 2.0 is interaction and exchange of information. Though it could have simply been termed as advanced forms of previous web technologies but developers chose to coin a new and catchy name.
So it became accepted as new version of Web.
Here are few things that Web 2.0 has provided us.
Blogs
Blog is a term that is derived from the blending of the two words ‘web’ and ‘log’….Blog. Early in the history of the World Wide Web people could build personal web pages. It is true that not many people did build personal webpages but it was, nonetheless, possible.
Still, these personal webpages were static websites. The owner of the website could post information about himself or his interests but others could only read the information that the owner of the website posted.
He could keep an online journal that he could allow others to read but it was ‘read only’.
Then blogging software was developed. In contrast to read only, blogging software allowed users to post comments. It was a huge advancement.
Initial blog platforms were pretty simple but today they have become like content management sytems.
Today blogging is very big business.
But it is not all that Web 2.0 has given us.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is more or less a by-product of blogging but it is based on the same basic technology.
Social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, allow their users to upload their own favorite site bookmarks so that everybody else in the world can see and use those bookmarks.
When a user uploads his favorite site bookmarks into his online account, a backlink is created to that site. When enough people click on the link, the site that has been book marked gets indexed and gains a rank by search engines.
It is a form of user driven advertisements and it is far more successful than any kind of paid-for advertising can ever be.
There are a great many social bookmarking sites and they have
Wiki
Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.
In short Wiki technology allows editing of material posted on a website by the poster or by others.
The best example of Wiki technology is action on the Internet is Wikipedia.
RSS Feed: The acronym RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is yet another Web 2.0 feature that allows the web to be driven by people. Those who use RSS content use reader or aggregator technology. Users subscribe to these feeds.
The reader or aggregator then checks the user’s website and when the site has new content, it is picked up and sent to the user. That is a rather simplified explanation but that is basically how it works.
A client based reader or aggregator is a stand-alone program that is attached to an existing program such as a web browser or an email reader.
A web-based reader or aggregator makes the user’s feeds available on any computer with web access.
Podcasts
A podcast is a series of digital media files, usually either digital audio or video, that is made available for download via web syndication. As broadband internet connect connections and wireless networks become more and more common throughout the entire world, the podcast or webcast is gaining in popularity.
While people do still read, they are better at looking and listening to information thanks to television, hence, the advent of podcasts or webcasts.
You can find and tune into podcasts or webcasts on almost any subject imaginable today.
Well, of course, there will be. Web 2.0 is fluid and it is every changing. New technology will be developed and as it is developed people will use it.
And, you might ask, just who will benefit the most from Web 2.0? It will be those who embrace the new technologies as they become available and it will be us…all of us.
The internet no longer belongs to the few and the privileged. Web 2.0 is responsible for this.
Most astounding thing about Web 2.0 technologies is that they are free. So everybody can afford to run a site without much know how.R
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Tags: blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, Web 2.0, Wiki
