What Is Web 2.0?

The Confusion

RSS Feeds, Podcasts, Citizen Media, Mash-ups, Ajax, Life-Hacking………these are all names that have been used in conjunction with the term Web 2.0. We’ve all heard of it, but what is Web 2.0 REALLY?

More than anything, these names have a tendency to confuse me. The people who coined these terms are mostly either Media journalists or techno-geeks (apologies if you admit to being either these).

What Web 2.0 Isn’t

To get to the bottom of what Web 2.0 is, let me start by telling you what it isn’t. It’s not an independent version of the World Wide Web, separate from the one we’ve been using for years and t’s not one, single, new technology that makes doing something on the internet easier or faster.

In fact, it’s not a THING at all.

The term Web 2.0 was coined by Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty during a brainstorming session soon after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. It’s taken several years to become widely known, but it’s now part of everyday life (at least, that is, if you have a computer connected to the internet which you do of course). So they came up with the term to DIFFERENTIATE between the way the internet was being used pre-2001 and post-2001.

Here are some distinctions between how the web was used THEN, and how it’s used NOW:

Alta Vista vs. Google

Hotmail vs. Yahoo Mail

Netscape vs. Firefox

Geocities vs. Blogger

Mp3 vs. iTunes

Mapquest vs. Google Maps

Encarta vs. Wikipedia

So what is so different about the two columns? The applications themselves! There are no fixed data formats, the data being created BY THE USER (that’s you and me) and the user can also use data outside of the application itself and in different (non-related) devices also (like your cellphone).

Ownership

Web 2.0 applications gives us a sense of ownership rather than that of being a customer, so there’s much more contribution from us.

These applications allow the creation of Online Communities, Libraries, Notice Boards and Video-Sharing, such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

New Technologies

So using existing technologies (the internet) along with new ones (like Ajax, RSS, XHTML and CSS) the World Wide Web has been able to evolve, allowing us to view the web in entirely new ways and to benefit from it in ways that wouldn’t have been possible just a few years ago.

In short, there is much more FREEDOM with what you can do with these “Web 2.0″ sites.

Perfection

So is everything perfect in the new world of Web 2.0? Absolutely not.

Inherent with freedom comes responsibility. We must understand that we are ultimately responsible for what we upload to sites (whether it’s text, audio or video). As part-owners of these sites, we must hold ourselves much more accountable.

AND we are responsible for what we view, download and read! JUST LIKE REAL LIFE!

More Opportunities for Internet Marketers

However, there are also FAR MORE OPPORTUNITIES than ever before!

So Web 2.0 is really a term, a nice “buzzword” to describe a series of website trends, concepts and technologies. If nothing else, it CAN make it easier for the vast majority of us to understand how the World Wide Web is evolving and to help us think about what it might become during the coming years.  It’ll be interesting to see what Web 3.0 looks like!

How can knowing all this help you? I have found a breakthrough tutorial that I’m promoting that will both enhance your enjoyment of Web 2.0 AND to help you make some money. I’ve put it on this website:

www.explosivesocialtraffic.com

Luke