What is Web 2.0?

Question

I know it doesn't have a definition, but what is your perception of this thing that's called Web 2.0?

Answer 1

Web 2.0 is all about standards.

Ten years ago, we had the browser wars. Microsoft & Netscape were at war, and one weapon each had was the ability to add cool new proprietary tags like "blink" and "marquee". Then, Netscape came out with Javascript, Microsoft countered with their own implementation of it, and they started making incompatible extensions to it.

ECMAScript, CSS, and even XML have created a much more consistent experience across browsers. ECMAScript (Javascript) is actually *useful* now, and CSS gives ECMAScript programmers a ton of properties to manipulate on every node in a page. DOM libraries are everywhere now, too, so almost any application can deal with XML data easily. As a consequence, standardized XML-based formats like RSS and SOAP are popping up everywhere.

Everything else follows from having these better, standardized tools.

It also helps that a large number of users are on broadband and have a modern full-featured browser. There's very little incentive to accomodate someone on a 2400bps dial-up connection running a pre-Javascript browser in 16-color EGA. The userbase is, on average, much more computer-savvy too.

Answer 2

My perception is that it is the AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) as well as the new kinds of design we are seeing these days in web design (those shiny buttons with rounded edges, big text, different fonts, etc.). Also I think RSS as well the idea of the content generated by visitors of the site also are part of web 2.0.

Answer 3

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004,[1] refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences, and since 2004 some members of certain technical and marketing communities have adopted and loosely adapted the phrase. Others, notably Tim Berners-Lee, see the term as a needless and poorly-defined buzzword.