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Web 2.0

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 It has been suggested that Web 1.0 be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)
A tag cloud presenting Web 2.0 themes

"Web 2.0" refers to what is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies.

The term "Web 2.0" was coined by Darcy DiNucci in 1999. In her article "Fragmented Future," she writes[2]

The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfuls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. ... The Web will be understood not as screenfuls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens. It will [...] appear on your computer screen, [...] on your TV set [...] your car dashboard [...] your cell phone [...] hand-held game machines [...] and maybe even your microwave.

Her arguments about Web 2.0 are nascent yet hint at the meaning that is associated with it today.

The term is now closely associated with Tim O'Reilly because of the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.[3][4] Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web. According to Tim O'Reilly:

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.[5]

However, whether it is qualitatively different from prior web technologies has been challenged. For example, World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee called the term a "piece of jargon"[6].

Contents

Definition

"Web 2.0" refers to a second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashup and folksonomies.

Characteristics

Flickr, a Web 2.0 web site that allows users to upload and share photos

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.[4] Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. [4][7] These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.[3][4] This stands in contrast to traditional websites, the sort that 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[3][4] and similar client-side interactivity frameworks, or full client-server application frameworks such as OpenLaszlo, Flex, and the ZK framework.[4][7].

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"[8] 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.[9] This requires what is sometimes called Radical Trust by the management of the website. According to Best,[10] the characteristics of Web 2.0 are: rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content, metadata, web standards and scalability. Further characteristics, such as openness, freedom[11] and collective intelligence[12] by way of user participation, can also be viewed as essential attributes of Web 2.0

Technology overview

The sometimes complex and continually evolving technology infrastructure of Web 2.0 includes server-software, content-syndication, messaging-protocols, standards-oriented browsers with plugins and extensions, and various client-applications. The differing, yet complementary approaches of such elements provide Web 2.0 sites with information-storage, creation, and dissemination challenges and capabilities that go beyond what the public formerly expected in the environment of the so-called "Web 1.0".

Web 2.0 websites typically include some of the following features/techniques. Andrew McAfee used the acronym SLATES to refer to them:[13]

Search
The ease of finding information through keyword search.
Links
Ad-hoc guides to other relevant information.
Authoring
The ability to create constantly updating content over a platform that is shifted from being the creation of a few to being constantly updated, interlinked work. In wikis, the content is iterative in the sense that users undo and redo each other's work. In blogs, content is cumulative in that posts and comments of individuals are accumulated over time.
Tags
Categorization of content by creating tags: simple, one-word user-determined descriptions to facilitate searching and avoid rigid, pre-made categories.
Extensions
Powerful algorithms that leverage the Web as an application platform as well as a document server.
Signals
The use of RSS technology to rapidly notify users of content changes.


Usage

The popularity of the term Web 2.0, along with the increasing use of blogs, wikis, and social networking technologies, has led many in academia and business to coin a flurry of 2.0s,[14] including Library 2.0,[15] Social Work 2.0,[16]Enterprise 2.0, PR 2.0,[17] Classroom 2.0, Publishing 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Travel 2.0 and Government 2.0.[18] Many of these 2.0s refer to Web 2.0 technologies as the source of the new version in their respective disciplines and areas. For example, in the Talis white paper "Library 2.0: The Challenge of Disruptive Innovation," Paul Miller argues

Blogs, wikis and RSS are often held up as exemplary manifestations of Web 2.0. A reader of a blog or a wiki is provided with tools to add a comment or even, in the case of the wiki, to edit the content. This is what we call the Read/Write web.Talis believes that Library 2.0 means harnessing this type of participation so that libraries can benefit from increasingly rich collaborative cataloguing efforts, such as including contributions from partner libraries as well as adding rich enhancements, such as book jackets or movie files, to records from publishers and others.[19]

Here, Miller links Web 2.0 technologies and the culture of participation that they engender to the field of library science, supporting his claim that there is now a "Library 2.0." Many of the other proponents of new 2.0s mentioned here use similar methods.

According to the Global Language Monitor, Web 2.0 is the one millionth word to enter the English language [20].

Web-based applications and desktops

Ajax has prompted the development of websites that mimic desktop applications, such as word processing, the spreadsheet, and slide-show presentation. WYSIWYG wiki sites replicate many features of PC authoring applications. Still other sites perform collaboration and project management functions. In 2006 Google, Inc. acquired one of the best-known sites of this broad class, Writely.[21]

Several browser-based "operating systems" have emerged, including EyeOS[22] and YouOS.[23] Although coined as such, many of these services function less like a traditional operating system and more as an application platform. They mimic the user experience of desktop operating-systems, offering features and applications similar to a PC environment, as well as the added ability of being able to run within any modern browser. However, these operating systems do not control the hardware on the client's computer.

Numerous web-based application services appeared during the dot-com bubble of 1997–2001 and then vanished, having failed to gain a critical mass of customers. In 2005, WebEx acquired one of the better-known of these, Intranets.com, for $45 million.[24]

Internet applications

Main article: Rich Internet application

XML and RSS

Advocates of "Web 2.0" may regard syndication of site content as a Web 2.0 feature, involving as it does standardized protocols, which permit end-users to make use of a site's data in another context (such as another website, a browser plugin, or a separate desktop application). Protocols which permit syndication include RSS (Really Simple Syndication — also known as "web syndication"), RDF (as in RSS 1.1), and Atom, all of them XML-based formats. Observers have started to refer to these technologies as "Web feed" as the usability of Web 2.0 evolves and the more user-friendly Feeds icon supplants the RSS icon.

Specialized protocols

Specialized protocols such as FOAF and XFN (both for social networking) extend the functionality of sites or permit end-users to interact without centralized websites.

Other protocols, like Jabber enables services to users like Services over the Messenger

Web APIs

Machine-based interaction, a common feature of Web 2.0 sites, uses two main approaches to Web APIs, which allow web-based access to data and functions: REST and SOAP.

  1. REST (Representational State Transfer) Web APIs use HTTP alone to interact, with XML (eXtensible Markup Language) or JSON payloads;
  2. SOAP involves POSTing more elaborate XML messages and requests to a server that may contain quite complex, but pre-defined, instructions for the server to follow.

Often servers use proprietary APIs, but standard APIs (for example, for posting to a blog or notifying a blog update) have also come into wide use. Most communications through APIs involve XML or JSON payloads.

See also Web Services Description Language (WSDL) (the standard way of publishing a SOAP API) and this list of Web Service specifications.

Criticism

The criticism exists that "Web 2.0" does not represent a new version of the World Wide Web at all, but merely continues to use so-called "Web 1.0" technologies and concepts. Techniques such as AJAX do not replace underlying protocols like HTTP, but add an additional layer of abstraction on top of them. Many of the ideas of Web 2.0 had already been featured in implementations on networked systems well before the term "Web 2.0" emerged. Amazon.com, for instance, has allowed users to write reviews and consumer guides since its launch in 1995, in a form of self-publishing. Amazon also opened its API to outside developers in 2002.[25] Previous developments also came from research in computer-supported collaborative learning and computer-supported cooperative work and from established products like Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino.

In a podcast interview[6], Tim Berners-Lee described the term "Web 2.0" as a "piece of jargon":

"Nobody really knows what it means...If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along."[6]

Other criticism has included the term “a second bubble” (referring to the Dot-com bubble of circa 1995–2001), suggesting that too many Web 2.0 companies attempt to develop the same product with a lack of business models. The Economist has also written about "Bubble 2.0".[26] Venture capitalist Josh Kopelman noted that Web 2.0 had excited only 53,651 people (the number of subscribers at that time to TechCrunch, a Weblog covering Web 2.0 startups and technology news), too few users to make them an economically viable target for consumer applications.[27] Although Bruce Sterling reports he's a fan of Web 2.0, he thinks it is now dead as a rallying concept.[28]

Critics have cited the language used to describe the hype cycle of Web 2.0[29] as an example of Techno-utopianist rhetoric.[30]

Critics such as Andrew Keen argue that Web 2.0 has created a cult of digital narcissism and amateurism, which undermines the notion of expertise by allowing anybody, anywhere to share (and place undue value upon) their own opinions about any subject and post any kind of content regardless of their particular talents, knowledgeability, credentials, biases or possible hidden agendas. He states that the core assumption of Web 2.0, that all opinions and user-generated content are equally valuable and relevant is misguided, and is instead "creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels," also stating that Wikipedia is full of "mistakes, half truths and misunderstandings".[31]

Trademark

In November 2004, CMP Media applied to the USPTO for a service mark on the use of the term "WEB 2.0" for live events.[32] On the basis of this application, CMP Media sent a cease-and-desist demand to the Irish non-profit organization IT@Cork on May 24, 2006,[33] but retracted it two days later.[34] The "WEB 2.0" service mark registration passed final PTO Examining Attorney review on May 10, 2006, and was registered on June 27, 2006.[32] The European Union application (application number 004972212, which would confer unambiguous status in Ireland) remains currently pending after its filing on March 23, 2006.

See also

Search Wikiversity Wikiversity has learning materials about Web 2.0

References

  1. ^ "Core Characteristics of Web 2.0 Services". http://www.techpluto.com/web-20-services/. 
  2. ^ DiNucci, D. (1999). "Fragmented Future". Print 53 (4): 32. 
  3. ^ a b c Paul Graham (November 2005). "Web 2.0". http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html. Retrieved on 2006-08-02. ""I first heard the phrase 'Web 2.0' in the name of the Web 2.0 conference in 2004."" 
  4. ^ a b c d e f Tim O'Reilly (2005-09-30). "What Is Web 2.0". O'Reilly Network. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html. Retrieved on 2006-08-06. 
  5. ^ Tim O'Reilly (2006-12-10). "Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again". http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/web_20_compact.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-20. 
  6. ^ a b c "developerWorks Interviews: Tim Berners-Lee". 2006-07-28. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int082206txt.html. Retrieved on 2007-02-07. 
  7. ^ a b Dion Hinchcliffe (2006-04-02). "The State of Web 2.0". Web Services Journal. http://web2.wsj2.com/the_state_of_web_20.htm. Retrieved on 2006-08-06. 
  8. ^ Bart Decrem (2006-06-13). "Introducing Flock Beta 1". Flock official blog. http://www.flock.com/node/4500. Retrieved on 2007-01-13. 
  9. ^ Gerald Marwell and Ruth E. Ames: "Experiments on the Provision of Public Goods. I. Resources, Interest, Group Size, and the Free-Rider Problem". The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 84, No. 6 (May, 1979), pp. 1335-1360
  10. ^ Best, D., 2006. Web 2.0 Next Big Thing or Next Big Internet Bubble? Lecture Web Information Systems. Techni sche Universiteit Eindhoven.
  11. ^ Greenmeier, Larry and Gaudin, Sharon. "Amid The Rush To Web 2.0, Some Words Of Warning -- Web 2.0 -- InformationWeek". www.informationweek.com. http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EWRPGLVJ53OW2QSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=199702353&_requestid=494050. Retrieved on 2008-04-04. 
  12. ^ O’Reilly, T., 2005. What is Web 2.0. Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, 30, p.2005
  13. ^ McAfee, A. (2006). Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. MIT Sloan Management review. Vol. 47, No. 3, p. 21-28.
  14. ^ Schick, S., 2005. I second that emotion. IT Business.ca (Canada).
  15. ^ Miller, P., 2008. Library 2.0: The Challenge of Disruptive Innovation. Available at: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.talis.com%2Fresources%2Fdocuments%2F447_Library_2_prf1.pdf&ei=qTUWSsWsH5SJtgeAlNTiDA&usg=AFQjCNER9YGaOBSyJFzz4lQ_GszwcQVqlw&sig2=_TunJ0srmZ8pio8Qzkzq-Q
  16. ^ Singer, Jonathan B. (2009). The Role and Regulations for Technology in Social Work Practice and E-Therapy: Social Work 2.0. In A. R. Roberts (Ed).. New York, U.S.A.: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195369373. http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/SocialWork/~~/dmlldz11c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5NTM2OTM3Mw==. 
  17. ^ Breakenridge, D., 2008. PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences 1st ed., FT Press.
  18. ^ Eggers, William D. (2005). Government 2.0: Using Technology to Improve Education, Cut Red Tape, Reduce Gridlock, and Enhance Democracy. Lanham MD, U.S.A.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.. ISBN 978-0742541757. http://www.manhattan-institute.org/government2.0/. 
  19. ^ Miller 10-11
  20. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8092549.stm
  21. ^ "Google buys Web word-processing technology". www.news.com. http://www.news.com/2100-1032_3-6048136.html. Retrieved on 2007-12-12. 
  22. ^ "Can eyeOS Succeed Where Desktop.com Failed?". www.techcrunch.com. http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/27/eyeos-open-source-webos-for-the-masses/. Retrieved on 2007-12-12. 
  23. ^ "Tech Beat Hey YouOS! - BusinessWeek". www.businessweek.com. http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2006/03/hey_youos.html. Retrieved on 2007-12-12. 
  24. ^ "PC World — WebEx Snaps Up Intranets.com". www.pcworld.com. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,122068-page,1/article.html. Retrieved on 2007-12-12. 
  25. ^ Tim O'Reilly (2002-06-18). "Amazon Web Services API". O'Reilly Network. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/1707?wlg=yes. Retrieved on 2006-05-27. 
  26. ^ "Bubble 2.0". The Economist. 2005-12-22. http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_QQNVDDS. Retrieved on 2006-12-20. 
  27. ^ Josh Kopelman (2006-05-11). "53,651". Redeye VC. http://redeye.firstround.com/2006/05/53651.html. Retrieved on 2006-12-21. 
  28. ^ ""Bruce Sterling presenta il web 2.0"". "LASTAMPA.it". http://www.lastampa.it/multimedia/multimedia.asp?p=1&IDmsezione=29&IDalbum=8558&tipo=VIDEO#mpos. 
  29. ^ ""Gartner 2006 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle". http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=495475. 
  30. ^ ""Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0," Special issue of First Monday, 13(3), 2008.". http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/issue/view/263/showToc. 
  31. ^ ""Thinking is so over". http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article1874668.ece. 
  32. ^ a b USPTO serial number 78322306
  33. ^ "O'Reilly and CMP Exercise Trademark on 'Web 2.0'". Slashdot. 2006-05-26. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/26/1238245. Retrieved on 2006-05-27. 
  34. ^ Nathan Torkington (2006-05-26). "O'Reilly's coverage of Web 2.0 as a service mark". O'Reilly Radar. http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/05/more_on_our_web_20_service_mar.html. Retrieved on 2006-06-01. 

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

Did you mean: Web 2.0, Web 2.0 (technology), Web 2.0 Conference (2005), Web 2.0 Conference (2004)


 

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