The phrase "Web 2.0" can also refer to one or more of the following:
The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming computing platforms serving web applications to end-users.
A social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation".
A pronounced distinction between functionality and web technology, enabling significantly easier creation of new business models and processes by using readily available intuitive modular elements.
Enhanced organization and categorization of content, emphasizing deep linking a rise in the economic value of the Web, possibly surpassing the impact of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.
Some users of the phrase "Web 2.0" employed it as a synonym for "Semantic Web".
(Hence the title of my post...)
The combination of social-networking systems such as FOAF and XFN with the development of tag-based folksonomies, delivered through blogs and wikis, sets up a basis for a semantic web environment.
Tim O'Reilly regards Web 2.0 as business embracing the web as a platform and utilizing its strengths (global audiences, for example). O'Reilly considers that Eric Schmidt's abridged slogan, “don't fight the Internet”, encompasses the essence of Web 2.0 — building applications and services around the unique features of the Internet, as opposed to building applications and expecting the Internet to suit as a platform (effectively "fighting the Internet").
O'Reilly wrote an article summarizing the subject. The mind map shown here is a picture to represent the “memes” of Web 2.0
Biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme, which first came into popular use with the publication of his book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Dawkins based the word on a shortening of the Greek “mimeme” (something imitated), making it sound similar to “gene”.
A meme is defined within memetic theory as a unit of cultural information, cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution.
Multiple memes may propagate as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes).
This idea is where the mindmap and cultural phenomena surrounding web 2.0 has roots in or evolved partially from.
Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity (such as a song, an idea or a religion) that an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesized that people could view many cultural entities as replicators, generally replicating through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (though not perfect) copiers of information and behavior.
Memes do not always get copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes. These memes may themselves prove more (or less) efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a theory of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.
Interestingly, considerable controversy surrounds the word meme and its associated discipline, memetics.
In the opening talk of the first Web 2.0 conference, Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle summarized what they saw as key principles of Web 2.0 applications:
- the web as a platform
- data as the driving force
- network effects created by an architecture of participation
- innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of "open source" development)
- lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication
- the end of the software adoption cycle ("the perpetual beta")
- software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of the "Long Tail"
- ease of picking-up by early adopters
O'Reilly provided examples of companies or products that embody these principles in his description of his four levels in the hierarchy of Web 2.0-ness:
Level 3 applications, the most “Web 2.0 oriented”, which could only exist on the Internet, deriving their power from the human connections and network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible and growing in effectiveness the more people use them. O'Reilly's examples were: eBay, craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball and Adsense.
Level 2 applications, which can operate offline but which gain advantages from going online. O'Reilly cited Flickr, which benefits from its shared photo-database and from its community-generated tag database.
Level 1 applications, also available offline but which gain features online. O'Reilly pointed to Writely (now part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets) and iTunes (because of its music-store portion).
Level 0 applications, which would work just as well offline. O'Reilly gave the examples of MapQuest, Yahoo! Local and Google Maps. Mapping applications using contributions from users to advantage can rank as "level 2". Non-web applications like email, instant-messaging clients and the telephone.
Characteristics of "Web 2.0"
While interested parties continue to debate the definition of a Web 2.0 application, a Web 2.0 website may exhibit some basic common characteristics. These might include:
- "Network as platform" — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser.
- Users owning the data on a site and exercising control over that data.
- An architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it—This seems to be in sharp contrast to hierarchical access-control in applications, in which systems categorize users into roles with varying degrees of functionality.
- A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.
- Some social-networking aspects.
The concept of “Web-as-a-participation-platform” captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web" and regards the Web-as-information-source as Web 1.0.
Of all the examples of the Web-2.0 tools, my personal favorite would have to be eBay, I-Tunes (or some derivative like Rhapsody [sorry Ted] ), and Wikipedia. I use wikipedia as a beginning source of information for nearly anything I don’t already know about.
Feel free to chime in with your favorite examples of Web 2.0!
