Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services – such as social-networking sites, wikis, and tagged content – which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. The term gained currency following the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use webs. According to Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”
The Internet evolved organically and the pundits noticed something new was abroad and termed it “Web 2.0″. And the recognition that the net is an elemental force that you cannot control is a fundamental attitude of the businesses that are succeeding in the Web 2.0 age, of which Google is a prime example.
Definition
The phrase “Web 2.0″ hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web. Technologies such as blogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, web application programming interfaces (APIs), and online web services such as eBay and Gmail provide enhancements over read-only websites. Stephen Fry (actor, author, and broadcaster) describes Web 2.0 as
“an idea in people’s heads rather than a reality. It’s actually an idea that the reciprocity between the user and the provider is what’s emphasized. In other words, genuine interactivity if you like, simply because people can upload as well as download”.
The idea of Web 2.0 can also relate to a transition of some websites from information islands to interlinked computing platforms that function like locally-available software in the perception of the user. Web 2.0 also includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use. This can result is a rise in the economic value of the web as users can do more online. Tim O’Reilly regards Web 2.0 as business embracing the web as a platform and utilising its strengths.
Characteristics
Web 2.0 websites allow the user to do more than just retrieve information. They can provide a platform, allowing users to run software applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may encourage users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in sharp contrast to the old control model, where site owners categorise users into roles with limited degrees of freedom or functionality. Web 2.0 sites often feature a rich, user-friendly interface based on Ajax, Flex or similar rich media. The sites may also have social-networking aspects.
Technology overview
Web 2.0 websites typically include some of the following features/techniques:
• rich Internet application techniques, often Ajax-based
• semantically valid XHTML and HTML markup
• microformats extending pages with additional semantics
• folksonomies (in the form of tags or tag clouds, for example)
• Cascading Style Sheets to aid in the separation of presentation and content
• REST and/or XML- and/or JSON-based APIs
• syndication, aggregation and notification of data in RSS or Atom feeds
• mashups, merging content from different sources, client- and server-side
• weblog-publishing tools
• wiki or forum software, etc., to support user-generated content
Economics and Web 2.0
The economic implications of Web 2.0 applications and technologies such as wikis, blogs, social-networking, open-source, open-content, file-sharing, peer-production all depends on mass collaboration. Termed “Wikinomics” and would depend on the principles of openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally.
Organisations could make use of these principles and models in order to prosper with the help of Web 2.0-like applications. Companies can design and assemble products with their customers, and in some cases customers can do the majority of the value creation. In each instance the traditionally passive buyers of editorial and advertising take active, participatory roles in value creation where masses of consumers, employees, suppliers, business partners, and even competitors co-create value in the absence of direct managerial control.
Summary
In conclusion, there are a few key areas to understand and focus on, for any organisation wishing to make capital out of this new Internet world.
Ajax
The advent of Ajax applications means web-based applications can now be made to work much more like desktop ones. As you read this, a whole new generation of software is being written to take advantage of Ajax, good examples being Google Maps and all the new social network sites. This is opening up a host of opportunities to do old things in new ways. The limits are bound only by the imagination.
Democracy
The web has always been the ultimate “power to the people” medium. Web 2.0 has taken this even further by demonstrating that the new wave of online super-businesses are generated through user interaction.
We now have several examples to prove that amateurs can surpass professionals, when they have the right kind of system to channel their efforts. Wikipedia may be the most famous. And it’s free, which means people actually read it. On the web, articles you have to pay for might as well not exist. Even if you were willing to pay to read them yourself, you can’t link to them. They’re not part of the conversation.
To use this to your organisation’s advantage, ask how you can open your company, product, service, website, blog, or whatever to allow the influence of the masses. It may be through feedback to a blog from your customers that you take prompt action on. Understand that the next generation of consumers are going to expect much more say in the businesses they purchase from.
Don’t Maltreat Users
Structure your online offering to provide the easiest, most pleasant, enjoyable, experience to your visitors. If you can provide free stuff, then do it in spades. Show generosity, don’t seek immediate gratification. Aim for the happy relationship with your consumer and trust that will eventually lead to money changing hands. If you make dealing with you hard, guess what, they not going to do it. Look at the way you treat visitors to your website. How many hoops are you making them jump through? How much are you giving away to sweeten the relationship?
Never let the competition fly under you, meaning never let any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. Another way to fly low is to give users more power. Let users do what they want. If you don’t and a competitor does, you’re in trouble.
Apple iTunes is Web 2.0ish in this sense. Finally you can buy individual songs instead of having to buy whole albums. The recording industry hated the idea and resisted it as long as possible. But it was obvious what users wanted, so Apple flew under the labels.
The most successful sites are the ones that figure out new ways to give stuff away for free. Craig list has largely destroyed the classified ad sites of the 90s, and OkCupid looks likely to do the same to the previous generation of dating sites.
Google was a pioneer in all three components of Web 2.0: their core business sounds crushingly hip when described in Web 2.0 terms, “Don’t maltreat users” is a subset of “Don’t be evil,” and of course Google set off the whole Ajax boom with Google Maps.
Web 2.0 means using the web as it was meant to be used, and Google does. That’s their secret. They’re sailing with the wind, instead of sitting becalmed praying for a business model, like the print media, or trying to tack upwind by suing their customers, like Microsoft and the record labels.
Google doesn’t try to force things to happen their way. They try to figure out what’s going to happen, and arrange to be standing there when it does. That’s the way to approach technology-and the right way to do business in the Web 2.0 era.
Tags: social networking, Web 2.0, web 2.0 marketing, what is web 2.0
