What is Web 2.0?
I am defining Web 2.0 as the interactive combination of:
- data resources, databases, repositories and access methods (the stuff that’s used/made/stored/saved)
- participants, users, creators of authentic content (the people)
- social networks and socially aware applications (the software)
in formations that create– or at least create the possibility for the emergence of– collective intelligence.
Because of the focus on participation, and the social nature of many Web 2.0 applications, there is a high degree of overlap between the characteristics of ‘Web 2.0’ and ‘social software’ apps in that they tend to include abilities such as:
- tags and alternate organization
- comments and discussion
- notes and annotation
- group collaboration capability
- internal and external contributions
- roles
- history
- syndication feeds
Web 2.0 is, in one sense, the grafting of sophisticated web techniques for handling literal interactions (selecting, entering, modifying, reformatting information; drawing, moving, connecting, reordering visually) in a browser with social software of various kinds.
Here is a graphic that attempts to visualize the pieces that together are called “Web 2.0” — not how there are different levels of participation:
Also, I used the term “collective intelligence” as one aspect of the Web 2.0 idea. Here is a visualization of what that term means in this context:
The Federal Citizen’s Information Center talks about Web 2.0 (a site worth exploring more if you have time):
“Web 2.0 is people interacting with the web (and each other) to create sites and experiences that are meaningful to them. With Web 2.0 collaboration is key – we’re no longer exchanging information between just one person and one website. Now, we have millions of people working on the same websites (and with each other) simultaneously.
Web 2.0 sites give large groups of people a place to share their knowledge and enthusiasm by posting articles, reviews, comments, videos and more. They give you the ability to be creative, express yourself, and just have fun.
“Posting” something (web lingo for putting something to a website so others can see it) to the web allows you to:
- share it with others
- open yourself to comments from everyone viewing it
- post questions and get answers
- create an opportunity for discussion that can evolve and grow
- Sometimes these collaborations can build great things, such as Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia with millions of articles, many updated minute by minute. Sometimes, the unrestricted sharing of information leads to things that aren’t so pretty, such as rampant cases of music piracy and copyright infringement.