Dissecting Web 2.0
September 19, 2007 by Mark Marucot
When you ask someone about the definition of Web 2.0, you will hear blogging, AJAX, wikis, Google Suggest and many other website services available around the web. Based on these keywords, Web 2.0 is the next generation of Internet based services that allow people to collaborate and share information online. Now let’s dissect Web 2.0.
Web as platform
This allows users to use the application entirely using the web browser. The channel should be through web. Web services and RSS information can only be used with the presence of Web and without it, information cannot be used in another web applications. This is a very broad term and so I only cite an example above. There could be more cases that web can be use as a platform.
Shared Web Application
Web application is an application that provides functionalities such as content management, web mail, discussion boards and many others. A web application can be shared if it can be use to be part of another application. Google Map is an example of shared web application.
User Ownership and Control of Data
With the emergence of Wikis, users take the ownership of the contents displayed in web. Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org) allows the user to post their article and gives the authority of update web contents.
User Participation
Blogs allow users to provide comments. Online article publishers allow to rate their articles or products. Amazon sells products and allows user reviews and ratings. This gives buyers add-on value on which products is best for them.
Democracy
Users decide the importance and relevance of the stories and articles. Digg, Shoutwire and other similar web application harness the collective judgment of the users.
Ajax Enabled Applications
Honestly, even though Ajax technology was already coined by Jesse James Garrett on February 2005, I was using this on my web game application without even knowing that the technique I’m using is really AJAX. I just laughed when I read an online article about AJAX and found out that I’m using one of the coolest things on web development.
AJAX is short name for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. It is technology for developing web applications. AJAX allows requests to server without page reloading and parsed and work with XML documents. Google Suggest offers suggestions as you type on the search text box. The information you are typing is sent to the server then AJAX retrieves the suggested keywords and display on your web browser. Notice that these suggested keywords are displayed without even reloading the page.
Social Networking
A social network is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations. This allows user to connect and collaborate through web to form a community like Friendster and My Space.
Upon dissection of the above characteristics of Web 2.0, I would say Web 2.0 gives us freedom to express what we want to express. We have the liberty to place any content we want to share. We have the power to decide which is the most important. And most of all, we are responsible to the information that we are sharing.
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