What is Web 2.0

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Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet—a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects.

Next wave of corporate productivity gains should be paced by Web 2.0 driven collaboration tools that use the network as the platform to enable users to connect any device to any content over any combination of networks (John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems, 5/22/07)


Contents

Why to use Web 2.0 Technologies?

  1. Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems.
  2. Think syndication, not coordination. Simple web services, like RSS and REST-based web services, are about syndicating data outwards, not controlling what happens when it gets to the other end of the connection. This idea is fundamental to the internet itself, a reflection of what is known as the end-to-end principle.
  3. Systems like the original web, RSS, and AJAX all have this in common: the barriers to re-use are extremely low. Much of the useful software is actually open source, but even when it isn't, there is little in the way of intellectual property protection.
    1. The web browser's "View Source" option made it possible for any user to copy any other user's web page;
    2. RSS was designed to empower the user to view the content he or she wants, when it's wanted, not what the provider wants;
  4. The most successful web services are those that have been easiest to take in new directions unimagined by their creators.
  5. The phrase "some rights reserved", which was popularized by the Creative Commons to contrast with the more typical "all rights reserved", is a useful guidepost.


The Web 2.0 Technologies

Ajax

Improving client-server communication allowing a much better user interaction. Ajax incorporates:

  • standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS;
  • dynamic display and interaction using the DOM;
  • data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT;
  • asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest;
  • JavaScript binding everything together.

Wiki collaborative environments

  • Mediawiki.
  • Docuwiki.
  • Semantic Mediawiki

Enables:

  • Easy user cooperation
  • Transparent cooperation
  • Semantic wikis as web of knowledge

Semantic Web Technologies


Web 2.0 Design Patterns

  • Data is the Next "Intel Inside" Applications are increasingly data-driven. Therefore: For competitive advantage, seek to own a unique, hard-to-recreate source of data.
  • Users Add Value. The key to competitive advantage in internet applications is the extent to which users add their own data to that which you provide. Therefore: Don't restrict your "architecture of participation" to software development. Involve your users both implicitly and explicitly in adding value to your application.
  • Network Effects by Default. Only a small percentage of users will go to the trouble of adding value to your application. Therefore: Set inclusive defaults for aggregating user data as a side-effect of their use of the application.
  • The Perpetual Beta. When devices and programs are connected to the internet, applications are no longer software artifacts, they are ongoing services. Therefore: Don't package up new features into monolithic releases, but instead add them on a regular basis as part of the normal user experience. Engage your users as real-time testers, and instrument the service so that you know how people use the new features.
  • Cooperate, Don't Control. Web 2.0 applications are built of a network of cooperating data services. Therefore: Offer web services interfaces and content syndication, and reuse the data services of others.
  • Software Above the Level of a Single Device. The PC is no longer the only access device for internet applications, and applications that are limited to a single device are less valuable than those that are connected. Therefore: Design your application from the get-go to integrate services across handheld devices, PCs, and internet servers.


Criticism

  • Web 2.0 does not represent a new version of the World Wide Web at all, but merely continues to use so-called "Web 1.0" technologies and concepts.
  • Techniques such as Ajax do not replace underlying protocols like HTTP, but add an additional layer of abstraction on top of them.
  • Many of the ideas of Web 2.0 had already featured in implementations on networked systems well before the term "Web 2.0". Amazon, for instance, has allowed users to write reviews and consumer guides since its launch in 1995, in a form of self-publishing. Amazon also opened its API to outside developers in 2002.
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