Web 2.0

Lately the buzzword on the Internet is Web 2.0. What is Web 2.0, you may ask. Web 2.0 is the name of a convention on the current trends and user demands concerning the Internet. But it is much more than that. The name has become synonymous with the next evolution of the web. The idea is to break free from the current constraints of the web.

When the web was young, it was very one-sided. It was very much a one-way affair. The user could, in most cases, not really change or contribute to the web, unless he knew some advanced techno-stuff. Of course, this wasn't really a problem back then, because what the Internet could achieve was quite amazing for the time.

Users looked up info and not much more. Dynamically served web sites have done much to change that. Dynamic sites can cater much better for user's demands, and, most importantly, also let them participate in the web without having to know how to set up a web server and create a web site.

Fora have long existed in various forms. First as bulletin boards, then later as Usenet. Now they exist as dynamically generated web sites. Any site aiming to cater for a community (whether the site is maintained by the community, like Wikipedia or another entity, like a corporation such as Wizards of the Coast, is irrelevant), has to get itself some forums. Because of this, many forums have sprung up and open source projects provide some good free forum software, such as PunBB and phpBB. Another major development are blogs. Blogging has put online publishing at everybody's fingertips. Some of the more well-known blogging tools include Blogger and Movable Type. Another useful community tool is the wiki, the most well-known of which is Wikipedia, which uses the WikiMedia technology. Some of the more unknown ones include Podcasting. The web is really starting to be made and used by the same people, called prosumers (mix of professionals and consumers).

The Web 2.0 builds on that in a very big way. Or at least that is what everyone expects. No one can quite agree on what the Web 2.0 is exactly. You'll know when you see a Web 2.0 site, but you won't be able to exactly put into words why it is a Web 2.0 site.

The Web 2.0 is meant to engage the user. The user must easily be able to change anything they want. The Web 2.0 is meant to be a platform. Nobody can really say what it is. But most of us will agree that Google Maps is a Web 2.0 site. One of the major catalysts behind this Web 2.0 thing was a book called The Cluetrain Maifesto. If you want to know more about what a Web 2.0 site is, just Google it, you lazy thing you.

What does this mean for people like me, the ones who still create code for the web? Well, it means that we have to keep ahead of the users, ahead of their trends, both in terms of technology (cannot do without a working knowledge of a server-side language such as PHP or ASP, or client-side such as JavaScript, and know how to use them together, which is the basic premise of the Ajax methodology) and content (both reading it and writing it). Interesting times.

A very thought-provoking Flash video I found on the web ages ago touches on this. It tries to predict what will happen because of the changing Internet. Clicky here to view it (takes a long time to load).

This stuff is kinda unrelated, but drop by KarmaDownload and El Hermo's Den of Despair.