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What is Web 2.0

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by: Stebee
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Word Count: 644

Web 2.0 is a living term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and its hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. The term became notable after the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web. Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.Web 2.0 has numerous definitions. Basically, the term encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content. Tim O'Reilly regards Web 2.0 as business embracing the web as a platform and using its strengths, for example global audiences. O'Reilly considers that Eric Schmidt's abridged slogan, don't fight the Internet, encompasses the essence of Web 2.0 — building applications and services around the unique features of the Internet, as opposed to expecting the Internet to suit as a platform (effectively "fighting the Internet"). In the opening talk of a first Web 2.0 conference, O'Reilly and John Battelle summarized what they saw as the themes of Web 2.0. They argued that the web had become a platform, with software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of the "Long Tail", and with data as a driving force. According to O'Reilly and Battelle, an architecture of participation where users can contribute website content creates network effects. Web 2.0 technologies tend to foster innovation in the assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers. (This could be seen as a kind of "open source" or possible "Agile" development process, consistent with an end to the traditional software adoption cycle, typified by the so-called "perpetual beta".) Web 2.0 technology encourages lightweight business models enabled by syndication of content and of service and by ease of picking-up by early adopters.Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in contrast to very old traditional websites, the sort which limited visitors to viewing and whose content only the site's owner could modify. Web 2.0 sites often feature a rich, user-friendly interface based on Ajax, OpenLaszlo, Flex or similar rich media. The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web" and regards the Web-as-information-source as Web 1.0. The impossibility of excluding group-members who don’t contribute to the provision of goods from sharing profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and free-ride on the contribution of others. The analysis of the economic implications of "Web 2.0" applications and loosely-associated technologies such as wikis, blogs, social-networking, open-source, open-content, file-sharing, peer-production, etc. has also gained scientific attention. This area of research investigates the implications Web 2.0 has for an economy and the principles underlying the economy of Web 2.0. Cass Sunstein's book "Infotopia" discussed the Hayekian nature of collaborative production, characterized by decentralized decision-making, directed by (often non-monetary) prices rather than central planners in business or government.