What is Web 2.0?
It is constantly changing, so buckle up!
Video by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University
WEB 2.0 BASICS
Web 2.0 is a trend in the use of Web technology and web design that facilitate creativity, information sharing, and in particular, collaboration among its users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web, based communities and hosted services, like social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.
In 2001 when the dot com bubble burst, the web reached its most significant turning point since its birth. In one word... FAILURE. Many thought the web was proved as a passing phase, a blip in the radar, but out of this failure the web was reborn. The companies that survived had a different fundamental approaches that set them apart from the companies that failed.
They approached the web as a platform and used the unique features and essence of the web for their success instead of trying to make the web change to a pre-existing business model or product.
The most uniqie feature of the web was that information went world wide instantly so companies that were successful used the power of the web to harness collective intelligence. Anthony D. Williams co-author of "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything" refers to the difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0 as "Public Squares vs. Walled Gardens." Web 1.0 was all based on a hierarchical structure much like you'd see when you look a set of Britannica Encyclopedia's on your book shelf. In contrast Wed 2.0 is collaborative and relies on input from its users to create the story in contrast its Wikipedia. Which by the way has 10 times as many entries as Britannica which just 10 years ago was considered largest information resource in the world. What was found was that companies that embraced this "Public Square" grew exponentially and flew past their hierarchical counterparts.
Why?
The "Wikinomics" authors found that 65% of this new generation of online customers wants a two-way relationship with the brands they select, with the ability to provide feedback and direct input. While companies had to embrace the concept of having to take input on how and what they sell from their customers... the great thing about the relationship is "IT WAS TWO-WAY." Patrons who embraced giving feedback also embraced getting it from the placed that browsed and shopped online. From Amazon's recommendations to iTunes "just for you" and more recent "genius" features. This two way relationship was as beneficial to both parties and that is why it was so successful.
GLOSSARY
Blog:
A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs. With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning... that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.(Source Wikipedia)
Folksonomy:
Folksonomy (also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging) is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. Folksonomy describes the bottom-up classification systems that emerge from social tagging. In contrast to traditional subject indexing, metadata is generated not only by experts but also by creators and consumers of the content. Usually, freely chosen keywords are used instead of a controlled vocabulary.Folksonomy (from folk + taxonomy) is a user-generated taxonomy. (Source Wikipedia)
Perpetual Beta:
Perpetual beta is a term used to describe software or a system which never leaves the development stage of beta. It is often used by developers in order to allow them to constantly release new features that might not be fully tested. As a result, perpetual beta software is not recommended for mission critical machines.
Perpetual beta has come to be associated with the development and release of a service in which constant updates are the foundation for the habitability or usability of a service. According to publisher and open source advocate Tim O'Reilly: "Users must be treated as co-developers, in a reflection of open source development practices (even if the software in question is unlikely to be released under an open source license.) The open source dictum, 'release early and release often', in fact has morphed into an even more radical position, 'the perpetual beta', in which the product is developed in the open, with new features slipstreamed in on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. It's no accident that services such as Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, and the like may be expected to bear a 'Beta' logo for years at a time."(Source Wikipedia)
Social Network:
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade. The resulting graph-based structures are often very complex. Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.(Source Wikipedia)
Wiki:
A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in business to provide intranets and Knowledge Management systems. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work." (Source Wikipedia)
