What is Web 2.0
If you have a cause you would like to promote online, one of the most important concepts for you to grasp and understand is Web 2.0.
So, what is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 refers to what is considered to be a “second generation of web design and development” which facilitates:
- Communication
- Secure data sharing (amongst the individuals or groups you wish to share the data with)
- Interaction amongst websites
- Interaction amongst individuals online
- Collaboration online
- Automated Data Exchange
- User-generated content (allows website visitors to create content for on that website. This is what happens, for example, if you leave a comment on a YouTube video.
- The ability to mix content from several websites into new services and sites.
From a purely technical viewpoint, Web 2.0 refers to a type of technology which allows to websites to automatically interchange or “mash” data together. It allows automated data exchange. This same technology is what allows the above-mentioned points to take place.
For example, if I wanted, I could set up a sidebar on another blog to show the most recent posts of this particular blog. Every time I add a new post to this blog, its title and description would show up on the other blog. That is a simple example of Web 2.0.
If you see a map from one website embedded on another website, this is Web 2.0 (for example, when people use Google Maps to show the location of their business, by embedding a small section of a Google Map on their website.
Web 2.0 technology also allows us, as individuals, to organize, share, recommend, and categorize data. We do this, for example, in certain types of website which allow us to vote for, recommend, or bookmark links to web pages we like. An example of this is a Social Bookmarking site such as Delicious.
How does a Social Bookmarking site work? You sign up for a free account. Every time you find a website or webpage that you find interesting, which you want to come back to later or recommend to others, you can “bookmark” it. You simply enter the link and click a few links to tell the website that you want to bookmark this page. Later on when you are trying to remember where the page is, you visit the social bookmarking site and log onto your account. Every page you have bookmarked will be categorized and recorded, easy for you to find.
Social Bookmarking websites typically allow us to assign tags (descriptive words) to the content we are bookmarking. Different Social Bookmarking sites have different options and different rules. A few examples of social bookmarking sites are:
As we bookmark, tag, recommend, and share information, our computers learn from us. When we tag images or web pages, computers learn from us about what words we associate with those web pages. When we recommend or bookmark web pages, computers learn from us about which web pages we consider to be important.
Billions of times per day, someone clicks on a link or visits a website.
When people share, trade, recommend, tag, network, and collaborate online, our computers learn from us.
The following video says it well.
If you are still feeling a little bit fuzzy on this, I recommend the following simple exercise:
- Visit the Delicious website.
- Register for a free account
- Find a webpage you like (maybe this one?)
- Bookmark that webpage in Delicious
- Add a description to your bookmark, which says what you think the webpage is about.
- Add a few tags (descriptive words) which you think apply to that web page.
- Do this with a few pages.
- Now go to your Delicious account and see how you can find the data you bookmarked. Try searching for it in a few different ways. Experiment with other features if you like.
This should serve to give you a bit of a better idea on this. I hope it helps!
