Web 2.0. Everyone seems to be saying it, but not everyone knows what it means yet. Here’s how to get current and knowledgeable and avoid the red face when asked a pointed question about this latest evolution of the World Wide Web.

Web 2.0 has not been explained to most of us. It’s like ‘the facts of life’ - we stumble upon a piece of information that enlightens us and we go, “Oh!”. Or we get initiated into it by someone that seems to be miles ahead of us and leaves us feeling rather uncomfortable and with a sense of inadequacy at our own ignorance.

Just so that we are all on the same page and so no one is left wondering, this article is intended to pull back the veil on the inner workings of Web 2.0 and give us all a few handy tips on how to take advantage of this significant development in the online environment.

“Web 2.0 - A term used to describe the current phase of accepted web development practices for web developers and designers. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web.”

Web-based communities, hosted services, online applications, social media websites, video- and media- sharing websites, blogs, and other content aggregator models are some examples of how Web 2.0 has manifested itself into mainstream web. A Web 2.0 site creates an interactive interface for users to connect online with other users or to dynamically change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to only viewing information that is uploaded on static pages.

Although the term, Web 2.0, suggests there is a new or updated version of the World Wide Web, this is not the case. It simply refers to the cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web, and not to an update to any technical specifications.

The term was first used in 1999 by Darci DiNucci who wrote an article that suggested that the web would become the interface - “the ether through which interactivity happens” -  on every portable internet-ready device that we use.

The term, Web 2.0, was not used again until 2003 and then began to gain momentum and popularity as a descriptive definition for “the web as platform” at the 2004 Web 2.0 conference hosted by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive.  By 2006 it was an entrenched and often-used phrase among technology fans, journalists and bloggers alike. In the years since, the World Wide Web has become synonymous with Web 2.0.

So what evolutionary characteristics are evident in Web 2.0? These are some suggested improvements on Web 1.0: 

• rich user experience
• user participation
• dynamic content
• metadata
• web standards and scalability
• openness, freedom & collective intelligence by way of user participation
• draws together the capabilities of client and server-side software
• content syndication
• the use of network protocols
• standards-oriented web browsers may use plugins and software extensions
• sites provide users with information storage, creation, and dissemination capabilities
• SLATES - Search (keyword search), Links (related content either native to the site or from external sources), Authoring (creation of content on the live site in the form of blogs, article submission, commentary, media upload and labeling, etc), Tags (one-word descriptions that facilitate the creation of categories of search), Extensions (software that makes use of the web as an application platform as well as a document server) and Signals (the use of syndication software like RSS - based on XML - to syndicate information onto multiple websites).



Web 2.0 is extremely popular with developers, designers and supporters of the movement that has brought us the improvements and added functionality and ‘socializing’ of the web of the past few years but it seems that there is only a limited understanding and a thin grasp of it’s fundamentals amongst the general public at this point. 

Everyone can make use of the Web 2.0 philosophy when it comes to their interactions on the web - whether it is for personal interactions or for use in a business context.



Helpful information that can get you started on your Web 2.0 experience:

• Look for technologies that make your life easier and refine your business practices by automating them. GoogleDocs, for example, is an excellent way to prepare written material for the web because it uses all the correct HTML text formatting and it autosaves.
• Research and then decide on between three and five key Web 2.0 technologies that are right for your business, such as podcasts, RSS feeds, blog posts, online applications, etc. It’s important to have a proper strategy in place to make use of the Web 2.0 technologies available. The adoption of the Web 2.0 technologies should be more than just another way to market your business, it should be the adoption of technology-rich resources that can be applied to key areas of business to make them more effective through the lowering of costs, enhancing of input/output times and the diversification of skills and abilities of key staff.
• Develop a branding strategy that incorporates some Web 2.0 exercises, such as search engine optimization, online advertising and marketing, join online communities that are beneficial to the development of business contacts and leads and will lead to in-person networking.

When it comes to your own website, use a design and development firm that understands and is able to apply the technologies that will enable your website to be effective and fully scalable in the Web 2.0 environment. This is not the time to be building static websites when there is so much you will cut yourself off from in the process.

Because Web 2.0 sites can be built as scalable, you don’t even need to spend a great deal of money to get what you want. In this industry, a good developer can get you started with a great website with just a single page!

However, be cautious and be realistic when it comes to quality and costs. With the advent of 2.0, there’s been a deluge of poor and misrepresentative firms and individuals, leaving many customers burned by poor delivery of service. As a web designer, I can tell you that as a community, professional web designers and developers are struggling every day with the perception that websites are cheap or can even be for free. Usually there’s a catch with those free websites, like an inflexible host or a contract that pins you down and deprives you of necessary opportunities to grow, or a developer that takes your money and vaporizes, never to be heard from again! So, again, do the research and if it looks too good to be true, it probably is! Rather stick to the middle of the road quotes, get references and look at examples of previous work done.

If you are a naturally cautious person and apply that caution to your business, start small. Sign up for informative RSS feeds and newsletters, get onto Twitter, Facebook or one of the other social media sites, download a movie from iTunes or simply surf and familiarize yourself with what competitors in your market are doing to ‘get with Web 2.0’.



To sum it all up, Web 2.0 - love it or hate it (and those that hate it are out there!) - is here to stay and is going a long, long way to moving our world into a global technology collective that is a living, breathing technological extension of ourselves. If you are a late adopter, it’s better than not being an adopter at all. Web 2.0 is not a new web or a revision of the information superhighway we zoomed onto more than a decade ago, it’s simply a new neighborhood with it’s own way of doing things. So, welcome to the neighborhood!