What is Web 2.0.

Everyone is talking web 2.0 but you will be surprised to know that very few people really understand the importance. Web 2.0 is hot and happening but what is it really? Is it another SEO tool or is it an online phenomenon?

Web 2.0 is associated with several web based applications that can facilitate interactive information sharing, user-centred design, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. That sounds complicated, doesn’t? In nut shell, web 2.0 refers to those websites that allow their users to interact with users from other websites as well as internet visitors. Examples of web 2.0 sites include blogs (WordPress, Eblogger), video sharing sites (YouTube, Photobucket, Flickr, GoFish, Vmix), social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook), wikis, and folksonomies. On a web 2.0 website, users can not only share content but also change it and this interactive and dynamic nature has made it successful and popular.

The term came into existence in a brainstorming session between Tim O’Reilly and Medialive International and was first publicly announced in the Web 2.0 Conference in 2004. Web 2.0 basically draws in the capabilities of both client and server-side softwares, use of network protocols, and content syndication. Some of the important techniques and features of web 2.0 include:

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  • Link: This is a guide to related information
  • Search: The ability to find valuable information using keyword search
  • Authoring: Ability to create as well as update content for collaborative work – where multiple authors are involved.
  • Tags: Content categorization by the users using one-word descriptions that helps facilitate searching
  • Extensions: Refers to software that can help in turning the World Wide Web into a document server as well as an application platform.
  • Signals: Using of syndication technology like RSS for notifying users about various content changes

Web 2.0 is a fairly new concept and there is a lot more of it that we will get to see in the coming years.