
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web)
refers to
website
A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...
s that emphasize
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...
,
ease of use,
participatory culture, and
interoperability
Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader de ...
(i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and devices) for
end user
In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrato ...
s.
The term was coined by
Darcy DiNucci in 1999
[
] and later popularized by
Tim O'Reilly and
Dale Dougherty
Dale Dougherty (born 1956) is a co-founder of O'Reilly Media, along with Tim O'Reilly and helped develop O'Reilly's publishing business. He is the author of the O'Reilly book ''sed & awk''.
Biography
Dougherty was the founder, in 1993, and publi ...
at the first
Web 2.0 Conference in 2004.
Although the term mimics the numbering of
software versions, it does not denote a formal change in the nature of the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
, but merely describes a general change that occurred during this period as interactive websites proliferated and came to overshadow the older, more static websites of the original Web.
A Web 2.0 website allows users to interact and collaborate through
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
dialogue as creators of
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...
in a
virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual commu ...
. This contrasts the first generation of
Web 1.0-era websites where people were limited to passively viewing content. Examples of Web 2.0 features include
social networking sites or
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
sites (e.g.,
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
),
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
s,
wiki
A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
s,
folksonomies ("tagging" keywords on websites and links),
video sharing sites (e.g.,
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
),
image sharing sites (e.g.,
Flickr
Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
),
hosted services,
Web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...
s ("apps"),
collaborative consumption
Collaborative consumption is the set of those resource circulation systems in which consumers both "obtain" and "provide", temporarily or permanently, valuable resources or service (economics), services through direct interaction with other con ...
platforms, and
mashup applications.
Whether Web 2.0 is substantially different from prior Web technologies has been challenged by World Wide Web inventor
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...
, who describes the term as
jargon
Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside ...
.
His original vision of the Web was "a collaborative medium, a place where we
ouldall meet and read and write". On the other hand, the term
Semantic Web
The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable.
To enable the encoding o ...
(sometimes referred to as Web 3.0) was coined by Berners-Lee to refer to a web of content where the meaning can be processed by machines.
History
Web 1.0
Web 1.0 is a
retronym
A retronym is a newer name for something that differentiates it from something else that is newer, similar, or seen in everyday life; thus, avoiding confusion between the two.
Etymology
The term ''retronym'', a neologism composed of the combi ...
referring to the first stage of the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
's
evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
, from roughly 1989 to 2004. According to Graham Cormode and Balachander Krishnamurthy, "content creators were few in Web 1.0 with the vast majority of users simply acting as consumers of content".
Personal web pages were common, consisting mainly of static pages hosted on
ISP-run
web server
A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...
s, or on
free web hosting services such as
Tripod
A tripod is a portable three-legged frame or stand, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. The three-legged (triangular stance) design provides good stability against gravitational loads ...
and the now-defunct
GeoCities
GeoCities, later Yahoo! GeoCities, was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest, active from 1994 to 2009. GeoCities was started in November 1 ...
. With Web 2.0, it became common for average web users to have social-networking profiles (on sites such as
Myspace
Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...
and
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
) and personal blogs (sites like
Blogger
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
,
Tumblr
Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...
and
LiveJournal
LiveJournal (), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as a way of keeping his high school ...
) through either a low-cost
web hosting service
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...
or through a dedicated host. In general, content was generated dynamically, allowing readers to comment directly on pages in a way that was not common previously.
Some Web 2.0 capabilities were present in the days of Web 1.0, but were implemented differently. For example, a Web 1.0 site may have had a
guestbook page for visitor comments, instead of a
comment section
The comments section is a feature on most online blogs, news websites, and other websites in which the publishers invite the audience to comment on the published content. This is a continuation of the older practice of publishing letters to the ...
at the end of each page (typical of Web 2.0). During Web 1.0, server performance and bandwidth had to be considered—lengthy comment threads on multiple pages could potentially slow down an entire site.
Terry Flew, in his third edition of ''New Media,'' described the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 as a
Flew believed these factors formed the trends that resulted in the onset of the Web 2.0 "craze".
Characteristics
Some common design elements of a Web 1.0 site include:
* Static pages rather than
dynamic HTML
Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is a term which was used by some browser vendors to describe the combination of HTML, style sheets and client-side scripts (JavaScript, VBScript, or any other supported scripts) that enabled the creation of interactive ...
.
* Content provided from the server's
filesystem rather than a relational database management system (
RDBMS).
* Pages built using
Server Side Includes or
Common Gateway Interface
file:Common Gateway Interface logo.svg, The official CGI logo from the spec announcement
In computing, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is an interface specification that enables web servers to execute an external program to process HTTP or HTTPS ...
(CGI) instead of a
web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...
written in a
dynamic programming language
A dynamic programming language is a type of programming language that allows various operations to be determined and executed at runtime. This is different from the compilation phase. Key decisions about variables, method calls, or data types are ...
such as
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language".
Perl was developed ...
,
PHP,
Python or
Ruby
Ruby is a pinkish-red-to-blood-red-colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapph ...
.
* The use of
HTML 3.2-era elements such as
frames and tables to position and align elements on a page. These were often used in combination with
spacer GIFs.
* Proprietary
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
extensions, such as the
<blink> and
<marquee> tags, introduced during the
first browser war.
* Online
guestbooks.
*
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...
buttons, graphics (typically 88×31
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...
s in size) promoting
web browser
A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
s,
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
s,
text editor
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...
s and various other products.
* HTML forms sent via
email
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
. Support for
server side scripting was rare on
shared servers during this period. To provide a feedback mechanism for web site visitors,
mailto forms were used. A user would fill in a form, and upon clicking the form's submit button, their
email client
An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.
A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functio ...
would launch and attempt to send an email containing the form's details. The popularity and complications of the mailto protocol led browser developers to incorporate
email client
An email client, email reader or, more formally, message user agent (MUA) or mail user agent is a computer program used to access and manage a user's email.
A web application which provides message management, composition, and reception functio ...
s into their browsers.
Web 2.0
The term "Web 2.0" was coined by
Darcy DiNucci, an
information architecture
Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging ...
consultant, in her January 1999 article "Fragmented Future":
Writing when
Palm Inc. introduced its first web-capable
personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a multi-purpose mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. Following a boom in the 1990s and 2000s, PDAs were mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of more highly capable smar ...
(supporting Web access with
WAP), DiNucci saw the Web "fragmenting" into a future that extended beyond the browser/PC combination it was identified with. She focused on how the basic information structure and hyper-linking mechanism introduced by
HTTP
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, wher ...
would be used by a variety of devices and platforms. As such, her "2.0" designation refers to the next version of the Web that does not directly relate to the term's current use.
The term Web 2.0 did not resurface until 2002.
[Knorr, Eric. 2003. The year of Web services. CIO, December 15.] Companies such as
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
, Facebook,
Twitter
Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
, and
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, made it easy to connect and engage in online transactions. Web 2.0 introduced new features, such as
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...
content and interactive web applications, which mainly consisted of two-dimensional screens. Kinsley and Eric focus on the concepts currently associated with the term where, as Scott Dietzen puts it, "the Web becomes a universal, standards-based integration platform".
In 2004, the term began to popularize when
O'Reilly Media
O'Reilly Media, Inc. (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that provides technical and professional skills development courses via an online learning platform. O'Reilly also publishes b ...
and MediaLive hosted the first Web 2.0 conference. In their opening remarks,
John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly outlined their definition of the "Web as Platform", where software applications are built upon the Web as opposed to upon the desktop. The unique aspect of this migration, they argued, is that "customers are building your business for you".
[O'Reilly, Tim, and John Battelle. 2004. Opening Welcome: State of the Internet Industry. In San Francisco, California, October 5.] They argued that the activities of users generating content (in the form of ideas, text, videos, or pictures) could be "harnessed" to create value. O'Reilly and Battelle contrasted Web 2.0 with what they called "Web 1.0". They associated this term with the business models of
Netscape
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...
and the
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...
. For example,
In short, Netscape focused on creating software, releasing updates and bug fixes, and distributing it to the end users. O'Reilly contrasted this with
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
, a company that did not, at the time, focus on producing end-user software, but instead on providing a service based on data, such as the links that Web page authors make between sites. Google exploits this user-generated content to offer Web searches based on reputation through its "
PageRank
PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. Accordin ...
" algorithm. Unlike software, which undergoes scheduled releases, such services are constantly updated, a process called "the
perpetual beta". A similar difference can be seen between the
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...
and
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
while the Britannica relies upon experts to write articles and release them periodically in publications, Wikipedia relies on trust in (sometimes anonymous) community members to constantly write and edit content. Wikipedia editors are not required to have educational credentials, such as degrees, in the subjects in which they are editing. Wikipedia is not based on subject-matter expertise, but rather on an adaptation of the
open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
software adage
"given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". This maxim is stating that if enough users are able to look at a software product's code (or a website), then these users will be able to fix any "
bugs" or other problems. The Wikipedia volunteer editor community produces, edits, and updates articles constantly. Web 2.0 conferences have been held every year since 2004, attracting
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.
An entreprene ...
s, representatives from large companies, tech experts and technology reporters.
The popularity of Web 2.0 was acknowledged by
2006 ''TIME magazine'' Person of The Year (''You''). That is, ''
TIME
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' selected the masses of users who were participating in content creation on
social network
A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...
s, blogs, wikis, and media sharing sites.
In the cover story,
Lev Grossman explains:
Characteristics
Instead of merely reading a Web 2.0 site, a user is invited to contribute to the site's content by commenting on published articles, or creating a
user account
A user is a person who uses a computer or network service.
A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name).
Some software products provide services to other systems and have no direct end use ...
or
profile on the site, which may enable increased participation. By increasing emphasis on these already-extant capabilities, they encourage users to rely more on their browser for
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
,
application software
Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not operating, administering or programming the computer. An application (app, application program, software application) is any program that can be categorized as ...
("apps") and
file storage facilities. This has been called "network as platform" computing.
Major features of Web 2.0 include
social networking
A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...
websites, self-publishing platforms (e.g.,
WordPress
WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...
' easy-to-use blog and website creation tools),
"tagging" (which enables users to label websites, videos or photos in some fashion),
"like" buttons (which enable a user to indicate that they are pleased by online content), and
social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is an online service which allows users to add, annotate, edit, and share Internet bookmark, bookmarks of web documents. Many online bookmark management services have launched since 1996; Delicious (website), Delicious, founded i ...
.
Users can provide the data and exercise some control over what they share on a Web 2.0 site.
These sites may have an "architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.
Users can add value in many ways, such as uploading their own content on blogs, consumer-evaluation platforms (e.g.
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
and
eBay
eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...
), news websites (e.g. responding in the comment section), social networking services, media-sharing websites (e.g. YouTube and
Instagram
Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
) and collaborative-writing projects. Some scholars argue that
cloud computing
Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
is an example of Web 2.0 because it is simply an implication of computing on the Internet.

Web 2.0 offers almost all users the same freedom to contribute, which can lead to effects that are varyingly perceived as productive by members of a given community or not, which can lead to emotional distress and disagreement. The impossibility of excluding group members who do not contribute to the provision of goods (i.e., to the creation of a user-generated website) from sharing the benefits (of using the website) gives rise to the possibility that serious members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and
"free ride" on the contributions of others. This requires what is sometimes called
radical trust by the management of the Web site.
Encyclopaedia Britannica
An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...
calls
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
"the epitome of the so-called Web 2.0" and describes what many view as the ideal of a Web 2.0 platform as "an egalitarian environment where the web of social software enmeshes users in both their real and virtual-reality workplaces."
According to Best, the characteristics of Web 2.0 are rich user experience, user participation,
dynamic content,
metadata
Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive ...
,
Web standards, and
scalability
Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work. One definition for software systems specifies that this may be done by adding resources to the system.
In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that ...
. Further characteristics, such as openness, freedom, and
collective intelligence
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that Emergence, emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiolog ...
by way of user participation, can also be viewed as essential attributes of Web 2.0. Some websites require users to contribute
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...
to have access to the website, to discourage "free riding".

The key features of Web 2.0 include:
#
Folksonomy
Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tag ...
free classification of information; allows users to collectively classify and find information (e.g.
"tagging" of websites, images, videos or links)
# Rich
user experience
User experience (UX) is how a user interacts with and experiences a product, system or service. It includes a person's perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency. Improving user experience is important to most companies, designers, a ...
dynamic content that is responsive to user input (e.g., a user can "click" on an image to enlarge it or find out more information)
#
User participationinformation flows two ways between the site owner and site users by means of evaluation, review, and online commenting. Site users also typically create
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...
for others to see (e.g.,
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
, an online encyclopedia that anyone can write articles for or edit)
#
Software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...
(SaaS)Web 2.0 sites developed
API
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
s to allow automated usage, such as by a
Web "app" (
software application
Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not computer operator, operating, system administration, administering or computer programming, programming the computer. An application (app, application program, sof ...
) or a
mashup
#
Mass participationnear-universal web access leads to differentiation of concerns, from the traditional Internet user base (who tended to be
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...
s and computer hobbyists) to a wider variety of users, drastically changing the audience of internet users.
Technologies
The
client-side (
Web browser
A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
) technologies used in Web 2.0 development include
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* Ajax (play), ''Ajax'' (play), by the an ...
and
JavaScript frameworks. Ajax programming uses
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior.
Web browsers have ...
and the
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cros s-platform and language-independent API that treats an HTML or XML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a document with ...
(DOM) to update selected regions of the page area without undergoing a full page reload. To allow users to continue interacting with the page, communications such as data requests going to the server are separated from data coming back to the page (
asynchronously).
Otherwise, the user would have to routinely wait for the data to come back before they can do anything else on that page, just as a user has to wait for a page to complete the reload. This also increases the overall performance of the site, as the sending of requests can complete quicker independent of blocking and queueing required to send data back to the client. The data fetched by an Ajax request is typically formatted in
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
or
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced or ) is an open standard file format and electronic data interchange, data interchange format that uses Human-readable medium and data, human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consi ...
(JavaScript Object Notation) format, two widely used
structured data
A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to the properties of real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be ...
formats. Since both of these formats are natively understood by JavaScript, a programmer can easily use them to transmit structured data in their Web application.
When this data is received via Ajax, the JavaScript program then uses the Document Object Model to dynamically update the Web page based on the new data, allowing for rapid and interactive user experience. In short, using these techniques, web designers can make their pages function like desktop applications. For example,
Google Docs uses this technique to create a Web-based word processor.
As a widely available plug-in independent of
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...
standards (the World Wide Web Consortium is the governing body of Web standards and protocols),
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...
was capable of doing many things that were not possible pre-
HTML5
HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...
. Of Flash's many capabilities, the most commonly used was its ability to integrate streaming multimedia into HTML pages. With the introduction of HTML5 in 2010 and the growing concerns with Flash's security, the role of Flash became obsolete, with browser support ending on December 31, 2020.
In addition to Flash and Ajax, JavaScript/Ajax frameworks have recently become a very popular means of creating Web 2.0 sites. At their core, these frameworks use the same technology as JavaScript, Ajax, and the DOM. However, frameworks smooth over inconsistencies between Web browsers and extend the functionality available to developers. Many of them also come with customizable, prefabricated '
widgets' that accomplish such common tasks as picking a date from a calendar, displaying a data chart, or making a tabbed panel.
On the
server-side, Web 2.0 uses many of the same technologies as Web 1.0. Languages such as
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language".
Perl was developed ...
,
PHP,
Python,
Ruby
Ruby is a pinkish-red-to-blood-red-colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapph ...
, as well as
Enterprise Java (J2EE) and
Microsoft.NET Framework, are used by developers to output data dynamically using information from files and databases. This allows websites and web services to share
machine readable formats such as
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
(
Atom
Atoms are the basic particles of the chemical elements. An atom consists of a atomic nucleus, nucleus of protons and generally neutrons, surrounded by an electromagnetically bound swarm of electrons. The chemical elements are distinguished fr ...
,
RSS, etc.) and
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced or ) is an open standard file format and electronic data interchange, data interchange format that uses Human-readable medium and data, human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consi ...
. When data is available in one of these formats, another website can use it to
integrate a portion of that site's functionality.
Concepts
Web 2.0 can be described in three parts:
*
Rich web applicationdefines the experience brought from desktop to browser, whether it is "rich" from a graphical point of view or a usability/interactivity or features point of view.
*
Web-oriented architecture (WOA)defines how Web 2.0 applications expose their functionality so that other applications can leverage and integrate the functionality providing a set of much richer applications. Examples are
feeds,
RSS feeds,
web services
A web service (WS) is either:
* a service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via the Internet, or
* a server running on a computer device, listening for requests at a particular port over a n ...
,
mashups.
*
Social Web
The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social int ...
defines how Web 2.0 websites tend to interact much more with the end user and make the end user an integral part of the website, either by adding his or her profile, adding comments on content, uploading new content, or adding
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...
(e.g., personal
digital photos).
As such, Web 2.0 draws together the capabilities of
client- and
server-side software,
content syndication and the use of
network protocols. Standards-oriented Web browsers may use
plug-ins and software extensions to handle the content and user interactions. Web 2.0 sites provide users with
information storage, creation, and dissemination capabilities that were not possible in the environment known as "Web 1.0".
Web 2.0 sites include the following features and techniques, referred to as the acronym
SLATES by Andrew McAfee:
; Search
: Finding information through
keyword search.
; Links to other websites
: Connects information sources together using the model of the Web.
; Authoring
: The ability to create and update content leads to the collaborative work of many authors.
Wiki
A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
users may extend, undo, redo and edit each other's work. Comment systems allow readers to contribute their viewpoints.
; Tags
: Categorization of content by users adding "tags" — short, usually one-word or two-word descriptions — to facilitate searching. For example, a user can tag a metal song as "
death metal
Death metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep death growl, growling vocals; aggressive ...
". Collections of tags created by many users within a single system may be referred to as "folksonomies" (i.e.,
folk taxonomies).
; Extensions
: Software that makes the Web an
application platform as well as a document server. Examples include
Adobe Reader,
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...
,
Microsoft Silverlight,
ActiveX
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide W ...
,
Oracle Java,
QuickTime,
WPS Office and
Windows Media.
; Signals
: The use of syndication technology, such as
RSS feeds to notify users of content changes.
While SLATES forms the basic framework of Enterprise 2.0, it does not contradict all of the higher level Web 2.0 design patterns and business models. It includes discussions of self-service IT, the long tail of enterprise IT demand, and many other consequences of the Web 2.0 era in enterprise uses.
Social Web
A third important part of Web 2.0 is the
social web
The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social int ...
. The social Web consists of a number of online tools and platforms where people share their perspectives, opinions, thoughts and experiences. Web 2.0 applications tend to interact much more with the end user. As such, the end user is not only a user of the application but also a participant by:
*
Podcasting
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an episodic series of digital audio files that users can download to a personal device or stream to listen to at a time of their ...
*
Blogging
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
*
Tagging
*
Curating with
RSS
*
Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is an online service which allows users to add, annotate, edit, and share Internet bookmark, bookmarks of web documents. Many online bookmark management services have launched since 1996; Delicious (website), Delicious, founded i ...
*
Social networking
A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...
*
Social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
*
Wiki
A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
s
*
Web content voting:
Review site or
Rating site
The popularity of the term Web 2.0, along with the increasing use of blogs, wikis, and social networking technologies, has led many in academia and business to append a flurry of 2.0's to existing concepts and fields of study, including
Library 2.0, Social Work 2.0,
Enterprise 2.0, PR 2.0, Classroom 2.0, Publishing 2.0, Medicine 2.0, Telco 2.0,
Travel 2.0,
Government 2.0, and even
Porn 2.0. Many of these 2.0s refer to Web 2.0 technologies as the source of the new version in their respective disciplines and areas. For example, in the Talis white paper "Library 2.0: The Challenge of Disruptive Innovation",
Paul Miller argues
"Blogs, wikis and RSS are often held up as exemplary manifestations of Web 2.0. A reader of a blog or a wiki is provided with tools to add a comment or even, in the case of the wiki, to edit the content. This is what we call the Read/Write web. Talis believes that Library 2.0 means harnessing this type of participation so that libraries can benefit from increasingly rich collaborative cataloging efforts, such as including contributions from partner libraries as well as adding rich enhancements, such as book jackets or movie files, to records from publishers and others."
Here, Miller links Web 2.0 technologies and the culture of participation that they engender to the field of library science, supporting his claim that there is now a "Library 2.0". Many of the other proponents of new 2.0s mentioned here use similar methods. The meaning of Web 2.0 is role dependent. For example, some use Web 2.0 to establish and maintain relationships through social networks, while some marketing managers might use this promising technology to "end-run traditionally unresponsive I.T. department
"
There is a debate over the use of Web 2.0 technologies in mainstream education. Issues under consideration include the understanding of students' different learning modes; the conflicts between ideas entrenched in informal online communities and educational establishments' views on the production and authentication of 'formal' knowledge; and questions about privacy, plagiarism, shared authorship and the ownership of knowledge and information produced and/or published on line.
Marketing
Web 2.0 is used by companies, non-profit organisations and governments for interactive
marketing
Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce.
Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...
. A growing number of marketers are using Web 2.0 tools to collaborate with consumers on product development,
customer service
Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those who buy or use its products or services, either in person or remotely. Customer service is often practiced in a way that reflects the strategies and values of a firm, and ...
enhancement, product or service improvement and promotion. Companies can use Web 2.0 tools to improve collaboration with both its business partners and consumers. Among other things, company employees have created wikis—Websites that allow users to add, delete, and edit content — to list answers to frequently asked questions about each product, and consumers have added significant contributions.
Another marketing Web 2.0 lure is to make sure consumers can use the online community to network among themselves on topics of their own choosing. Mainstream media usage of Web 2.0 is increasing. Saturating media hubs—like ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
,
PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues .
Overview
''PC Mag ...
'' and ''
Business Week
''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...
'' — with links to popular new Web sites and services, is critical to achieving the threshold for mass adoption of those services. User web content can be used to gauge consumer satisfaction. In a recent article for Bank Technology News, Shane Kite describes how Citigroup's Global Transaction Services unit monitors
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
outlets to address customer issues and improve products.
Destination marketing
In tourism industries, social media is an effective channel to attract travellers and promote tourism products and services by engaging with customers. The brand of tourist destinations can be built through marketing campaigns on social media and by engaging with customers. For example, the "Snow at First Sight" campaign launched by the
State of Colorado
Colorado is a state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas to the east ...
aimed to bring brand awareness to Colorado as a winter destination. The campaign used social media platforms, for example, Facebook and Twitter, to promote this competition, and requested the participants to share experiences, pictures and videos on social media platforms. As a result, Colorado enhanced their image as a winter destination and created a campaign worth about $2.9 million.
The tourism organisation can earn brand royalty from interactive marketing campaigns on social media with engaging passive communication tactics. For example, "Moms" advisors of the
Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort is an destination resort, entertainment resort complex located about southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States. Opened on October 1, 1971, the resort is operated by Disney Experiences, a division of the Wa ...
are responsible for offering suggestions and replying to questions about the family trips at Walt Disney World. Due to its characteristic of expertise in Disney, "Moms" was chosen to represent the campaign.
Social networking sites, such as Facebook, can be used as a platform for providing detailed information about the marketing campaign, as well as real-time online communication with customers. Korean Airline Tour created and maintained a relationship with customers by using Facebook for individual communication purposes.
Travel 2.0 refers a model of Web 2.0 on tourism industries which provides virtual travel communities. The travel 2.0 model allows users to create their own content and exchange their words through globally interactive features on websites.
The users also can contribute their experiences, images and suggestions regarding their trips through online travel communities. For example,
TripAdvisor
Tripadvisor is an American company that operates online travel agency, travel agencies, comparison shopping websites, and mobile apps with user-generated content.
Its namesake brand, Tripadvisor.com, operates in 40 countries and 20 languages, and ...
is an online travel community which enables user to rate and share autonomously their reviews and feedback on hotels and tourist destinations. Non pre-associate users can interact socially and communicate through discussion forums on TripAdvisor.
Social media, especially Travel 2.0 websites, plays a crucial role in decision-making behaviors of travelers. The user-generated content on social media tools have a significant impact on travelers choices and organisation preferences. Travel 2.0 sparked radical change in receiving information methods for travelers, from business-to-customer marketing into peer-to-peer reviews. User-generated content became a vital tool for helping a number of travelers manage their international travels, especially for first time visitors.
The travellers tend to trust and rely on peer-to-peer reviews and virtual communications on social media rather than the information provided by travel suppliers.
In addition, an autonomous review feature on social media would help travelers reduce risks and uncertainties before the purchasing stages.
Social media is also a channel for customer complaints and negative feedback which can damage images and reputations of organisations and destinations.
For example, a majority of UK travellers read customer reviews before booking hotels, these hotels receiving negative feedback would be refrained by half of customers.
Therefore, the organisations should develop strategic plans to handle and manage the negative feedback on social media. Although the user-generated content and rating systems on social media are out of a business' controls, the business can monitor those conversations and participate in communities to enhance customer loyalty and maintain customer relationships.
Education
Web 2.0 could allow for more collaborative education. For example, blogs give students a public space to interact with one another and the content of the class.
Some studies suggest that Web 2.0 can increase the public's understanding of science, which could improve government policy decisions. A 2012 study by researchers at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
notes that
: "...the internet could be a crucial tool in increasing the general public's level of science literacy. This increase could then lead to better communication between researchers and the public, more substantive discussion, and more informed policy decision."
Web-based applications and desktops
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* Ajax (play), ''Ajax'' (play), by the an ...
has prompted the development of Web sites that mimic desktop applications, such as
word processing A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicate ...
, the
spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...
, and
slide-show presentation.
WYSIWYG
In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for what you see is what you get, refers to software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web ...
wiki
A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
and
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
ging sites replicate many features of PC authoring applications. Several browser-based services have emerged, including
EyeOS and
YouOS.(No longer active.) Although named
operating systems
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
, many of these services are application platforms. They mimic the user experience of desktop operating systems, offering features and applications similar to a PC environment, and are able to run within any modern browser. However, these so-called "operating systems" do not directly control the hardware on the client's computer. Numerous web-based application services appeared during the
dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...
of 1997–2001 and then vanished, having failed to gain a critical mass of customers.
Distribution of media
XML and RSS
Many regard syndication of site content as a Web 2.0 feature. Syndication uses standardized protocols to permit end-users to make use of a site's data in another context (such as another Web site, a
browser plugin, or a separate desktop application). Protocols permitting syndication include
RSS (really simple syndication, also known as Web syndication),
RDF (as in RSS 1.1), and
Atom
Atoms are the basic particles of the chemical elements. An atom consists of a atomic nucleus, nucleus of protons and generally neutrons, surrounded by an electromagnetically bound swarm of electrons. The chemical elements are distinguished fr ...
, all of which are
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
-based formats. Observers have started to refer to these technologies as
Web feeds.
Specialized protocols such as
FOAF and
XFN (both for social networking) extend the functionality of sites and permit end-users to interact without centralized Web sites.
Web APIs
Web 2.0 often uses machine-based interactions such as
REST
REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that was created to describe the design and guide the development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of ...
and
SOAP
Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...
. Servers often expose proprietary
Application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...
s (APIs), but standard APIs (for example, for posting to a blog or notifying a blog update) have also come into use. Most communications through APIs involve
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
or
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced or ) is an open standard file format and electronic data interchange, data interchange format that uses Human-readable medium and data, human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consi ...
payloads. REST APIs, through their use of self-descriptive messages and
hypermedia as the engine of application state, should be self-describing once an entry
URI is known.
Web Services Description Language
The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also ...
(WSDL) is the standard way of publishing a SOAP Application programming interface and there are
a range of Web service specifications.
Trademark
In November 2004,
CMP Media applied to the
USPTO
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Ale ...
for a
service mark
A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in the United States and several other countries to identify a Service (economics), service rather than a product (business), product.
When a service mark is federally registered, the standard ...
on the use of the term "WEB 2.0" for live events.
On the basis of this application, CMP Media sent a
cease-and-desist demand to the Irish non-profit organisation IT@Cork on May 24, 2006, but retracted it two days later. The "WEB 2.0" service mark registration passed final PTO Examining Attorney review on May 10, 2006, and was registered on June 27, 2006.
The
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
application (which would confer unambiguous status in Ireland) was declined on May 23, 2007.
Criticism
Critics of the term claim that "Web 2.0" does not represent a new version of the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...
at all, but merely continues to use so-called "Web 1.0" technologies and concepts:
* First, techniques such as
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* Ajax (play), ''Ajax'' (play), by the an ...
do not replace underlying protocols like
HTTP
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, wher ...
, but add a layer of abstraction on top of them.
* Second, many of the ideas of Web 2.0 were already featured in implementations on networked systems well before the term "Web 2.0" emerged.
Amazon.com, for instance, has allowed users to write reviews and consumer guides since its launch in 1995, in a form of self-publishing. Amazon also opened its API to outside developers in 2002.
Previous developments also came from research in
computer-supported collaborative learning
Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a pedagogical approach wherein learning takes place via social interaction using a computer or through the Internet. This kind of learning is characterized by the sharing and construction of know ...
and
computer-supported cooperative work
Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is the study of how people utilize technology collaboratively, often towards a shared goal. CSCW addresses how computer systems can support collaborative activity and coordination. More specifically, the ...
(CSCW) and from established products like
Lotus Notes and
Lotus Domino, all phenomena that preceded Web 2.0.
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...
, who developed the initial technologies of the Web, has been an outspoken critic of the term, while supporting many of the elements associated with it. In
the environment where the Web originated, each workstation had a
dedicated IP address and always-on connection to the Internet. Sharing a file or publishing a web page was as simple as moving the file into a shared folder.
* Perhaps the most common criticism is that the term is unclear or simply a
buzzword
A buzzword is a word or phrase, new or already existing, that becomes popular for a period of time. Buzzwords often derive from technical terms yet often have much of the original technical meaning removed through fashionable use, being simply ...
. For many people who work in software, version numbers like 2.0 and 3.0 are for
software versioning
Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique ''version names'' or unique ''version numbers'' to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category (e.g., major or minor), these numbers are generally assig ...
or hardware versioning only, and to assign 2.0 arbitrarily to many technologies with a variety of real version numbers has no meaning. The web does not have a version number. For example, in a 2006 interview with
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
developerWorks podcast editor Scott Laningham, Tim Berners-Lee described the term "Web 2.0" as jargon:
[
]"Nobody really knows what it means... If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along... Web 2.0, for some people, it means moving some of the thinking o theclient side, so making it more immediate, but the idea of the Web as interaction between people is really what the Web is. That was what it was designed to be... a collaborative space where people can interact."
* Other critics labeled Web 2.0 "a second bubble" (referring to the
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...
of 1997–2000), suggesting that too many Web 2.0 companies attempt to develop the same product with a lack of
business model
A business model describes how a Company, business organization creates, delivers, and captures value creation, value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-pub ...
s. For example, ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
'' has dubbed the mid- to late-2000s focus on Web companies as "Bubble 2.0".
* In terms of Web 2.0's social impact, critics such as
Andrew Keen argue that Web 2.0 has created a cult of digital
narcissism
Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism, named after the Greek mythological figure ''Narcissus'', has evolv ...
and amateurism, which undermines the notion of expertise by allowing anybody, anywhere to share and place undue value upon their own opinions about any subject and post any kind of content, regardless of their actual talent, knowledge, credentials, biases or possible hidden agendas. Keen's 2007 book, ''
Cult of the Amateur'', argues that the core assumption of Web 2.0, that all opinions and user-generated content are equally valuable and relevant, is misguided. Additionally, ''
Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'' reviewer John Flintoff has characterized Web 2.0 as "creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels...
nd that Wikipedia is full ofmistakes, half-truths and misunderstandings". In a 1994 ''
Wired
Wired may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976
* ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993
* ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017
* "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street''
* "Wired ...
'' interview,
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...
, forecasting the future development of the web for personal publishing, said:
"The Web is great because that person can't foist anything on you—you have to go get it. They can make themselves available, but if nobody wants to look at their site, that's fine. To be honest, most people who have something to say get published now."
Michael Gorman, former president of the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world.
History 19th century ...
has been vocal about his opposition to Web 2.0 due to the lack of expertise that it outwardly claims, though he believes that there is hope for the future.:
"The task before us is to extend into the digital world the virtues of authenticity, expertise, and scholarly apparatus that have evolved over the 500 years of print, virtues often absent in the manuscript age that preceded print".
* There is also a growing body of critique of Web 2.0 from the perspective of
political economy
Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...
. Since, as Tim O'Reilly and John Batelle put it, Web 2.0 is based on the "customers... building your business for you,"
critics have argued that sites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are exploiting the "free labor" of user-created content. Web 2.0 sites use Terms of Service agreements to claim perpetual licenses to user-generated content, and they use that content to create profiles of users to sell to marketers. This is part of increased surveillance of user activity happening within Web 2.0 sites. Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard's Berkman Center for the Internet and Society argues that such data can be used by governments who want to monitor dissident citizens. The rise of
AJAX
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* Ajax (play), ''Ajax'' (play), by the an ...
-driven web sites where much of the content must be rendered on the client has meant that users of older hardware are given worse performance versus a site purely composed of HTML, where the processing takes place on the server.
Accessibility for disabled or impaired users may also suffer in a Web 2.0 site.
* Others have noted that Web 2.0 technologies are tied to particular political ideologies. "Web 2.0 discourse is a conduit for the materialization of neoliberal ideology." The technologies of Web 2.0 may also "function as a disciplining technology within the framework of a neoliberal political economy."
* When looking at Web 2.0 from a cultural convergence view, according to Henry Jenkins,
it can be problematic because the consumers are doing more and more work in order to entertain themselves. For instance, Twitter offers online tools for users to create their own tweet, in a way the users are doing all the work when it comes to producing media content.
See also
*
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
*
Collective intelligence
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that Emergence, emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiolog ...
*
Connectivity of social media
*
Crowd computing
*
Cute cat theory of digital activism
*
Enterprise social software Enterprise social software (also known as or regarded as a major component of Enterprise 2.0), comprises social software as used in " enterprise" (business/ commercial) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to corporate intranet ...
*
Libraries in virtual worlds
*
List of free and open-source web applications
*
Mass collaboration
Mass collaboration is a form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, often modular in its nature. Such projects typically take place on the internet using social software and computer-s ...
*
New media
*
Office suite
Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintin ...
*
Open-source governance
Open-source governance (also known as open governance and open politics) is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles to enable any intere ...
*
Privacy concerns with social networking services
*
Responsive web design
Responsive web design (RWD) or responsive design is an approach to web design that aims to make web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes from minimum to maximum display size to ensure usability and satisfactio ...
*
Semantic Web
The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable.
To enable the encoding o ...
, sometimes called Web 3.0
*
Social commerce
*
Social shopping
*
Web 2.0 for development (web2fordev)
*
Web3
*
You (Time Person of the Year)
; Application domains
*
Sci-Mate
*
Business 2.0
*
E-learning 2.0
*
e-government
E-government (known for electronic government) involves utilizing technology devices, such as computers and the Internet, for faster means of delivering public services to citizens and other persons in a country or region. E-government offer ...
(Government 2.0)
*
Health 2.0
*
Science 2.0
References
External links
*
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{{Semantic Web
2000s in computing
Brand management
Cloud applications
Internet ages
Internet culture
New media
Social information processing
Technology neologisms
Web services
1999 neologisms
1990s in computing