Web 2.

“The term "Web 2.0" (2004–present) is commonly associated with web

applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered
design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-
based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-
sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to
interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive
websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to
them. (…)
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 developersand end-users use the Web.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)
“ "Web 2.0" refers to the use of the Internet for interpersonal content sharing and
online service delivery. The Web 2.0 concept highlights services that allow people to find
and manipulate content, coupled with those that enable all types of media and services to
be published and inter-linked (or "mashed") in places that lots of people actually know
about. Key players in the emerging Web 2.0 marketplace therefore
include Google, YouTube, MySpace and Wikipedia.”
(http://www.explainingcomputers.com/web2.html)
The interpersonal computing aspects of Web 2.0 are most commonly associated
with the development of wikis, blogs, social networking sites, and viral video
sites. Wikis are websites that allow visitors to easily add, remove and edit content, hence
enabling the collaborative authorship of comprehensive documents (as opposed to single-
authored information resources that usually languish all alone on the web). The best
example of a wiki is the multi-lingual, web-based encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and which
currently includes over two million articles.
The public face of Web 2.0 may very much be focused on those websites
like MySpace and YouTube that facilitate free interpersonal content sharing. However, at
least as important in terms of the business implications of Web 2.0 is the second key

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aspect of web services. In essence, whilst interpersonal computing is concerned with
improving the scope and quality of the interconnections that may exist between two or
more people, web services enable improvements in the scope and quality of
interconnections that may exist between two or more different web resources, and hence
between those organizations that deliver them.
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. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that
data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add
value to the application as they use it.
Web 2.0 draws together the capabilities of client- and server-side
software, content syndication and the use of network protocols. Standards-oriented web
browsers may use plug-ins and software extensions to handle the content and the user
interactions. Web 2.0 sites provide users with information storage, creation, and
dissemination capabilities that were not possible in the environment now known as "Web
1.0".
An important aspect of Web 2.0 is SaaS (software as a service). The availability
of SaaS applications is also already starting to challenge the extent to which
organizations need to develop and maintain their own IT infrastructure. For example,
over 1500 companies are now using online web-based HR solutions
from Employease.com rather than maintaining in-house HR systems. Meanwhile in
higher education, more and more universities are rolling-out Google Apps Education
Edition (a tailored SaaS e-mail, office, calendar and messaging suite) across their
campuses.
But beyond the boardroom and the IT silo, Web 2.0 also matters because it is
starting to change the way in which we are all interacting not just with computers but
with each other.