What is Web 2.0?

You hear that term thrown around alot lately, but what does it really mean? Web 2.0 is the Gen Y world and what the next generation will be building upon. Oh, and your other members are getting in on it too (over 46% of MySpace users are over age 35).

Here is a framework for you to start. The term Web 2.0 was coined by Tim O’Reilly and his team. As he explains in a lengthy and informative overview of the term:

"The concept of 'Web 2.0' began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having 'crashed', the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common... In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:

Web 1.0 --> Web 2.0

DoubleClick --> Google AdSense

Ofoto --> Flickr

Akamai --> BitTorrent

mp3.com --> Napster

Britannica Online --> Wikipedia

personal websites --> blogging

evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB

domain name speculation --> search engine optimization

page views --> cost per click

screen scraping --> web services

publishing --> participation

content management systems --> wikis

"Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an 'architecture of participation,' and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences."

More info on Web 2.0 is here (as well as a listing of the “best” Web 2.0 tools).

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of this post – Why should you care?