What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0, the term was introduced in 2004. It characterizes the design patterns among the new generation Web-based applications and may provide the required infrastructure allowing a more dynamic participation by the user in the lines of social interaction as well as collaboration.

A more technical elaboration would reveal Web 2.0 as the web architecture and application development been carried to the next phase, often by combining certain techniques devised during the late 1990s. This includes public web service APIs, Ajax and web syndication; all these allow mass publishing including blogs and wikis. Now, with its status being hyped to a buzzword has incorporated anything with an apparently new face. Tags and podcasts are good examples of the same.

To discuss the characteristics of Web 2.0, the first thing that requires a mention is that Web 2.0 websites allow users go beyond than just retrieving information; with a network functioning as a computing platform, users shall be able to run software applications through only a browser. Moreover, they can exercise control over the data they produce through rich, user-friendly AJAX based interface, Flex or some similar rich media.

Web 2.0, being already fueled by the mobile technology (remember, mobile browsers?) has already given rise to smart, handheld computers rendering them a commonplace thing. The next to join the caravan have been predicted the microwaves, refrigerators, fax machines and all that you can think about. All these are bound to change the way people work; from a subtle beginning, it shall not take much time to reach the robust mark. As predicted, hard-disk based software shall be rendered obsolete in the near future; all that a person shall need to do is open up a website and start working there. Thus, it shall be completely an online phenomenon, wiping off even the little bar that geographical location has been able to put up all these days.

But then again, what about the security issues? They are bound to arise with the advent of the Web 2.0 model and so would be the number of Internet security managers. A local intranet thus may spread beyond your own town; say, the district or the state and shall probably be addressed by the governments.

Complex but continually evolving, Web 2.0 has a technology infrastructure that makes use of server-software, messaging-protocols, content-syndication, standards-oriented browsers (including plug-ins and extensions) and client applications. Information-creation and storage thus go beyond the former public expectations that the so-called Web 1.0 developed so far. Thus, to cut it short, let's end with some of the features/techniques of Web 2.0:

1. Rich Internet application techniques, mostly based on Ajax.

2. XHTML and HTML implementation that is semantically valid.

3. Micro-formats extending every page with added semantics.

4. Folksonomies in a tag or tag-cloud format.

5. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

6. Content merge-ups from various sources on both client as well as
server-side blog-publishing tools.

7. Wiki/forum software for supporting content generated by users.