What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 refers to services that use the web as a platform (instead of software dependent upon the device operating system), and encourage and benefit from social collaboration and user contributions (O’Reilly, 2005). A key term commonly used when defining Web 2.0 is user-generated content (O’Reilly; Schwerdtfeger, 2013; “Web 2.0,” n.d) This indicates that if a technology has no capability for user information creation and contribution, it is not a Web 2.0 technology. Primary examples of Web 2.0 include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and blogs, although it could be said that nearly every website worth its salt now incorporates Web 2.0 components, such as comments, ratings, reviews and even clickable ads.
Web 2.0 is now completely ingrained into our web experience. It was interesting reading through the 2005 O’Reilly article, one of the earliest articles that aimed to provide a cohesive definition of Web 2.0, as it felt quite dated. A quick google search confirmed my suspicion that the article was written before the release of the first smartphone, the iPhone 1st generation, in 2007.
I believe that smartphones have done much to fully incorporate Web 2.0 into our lives as an everyday tool. Reading the 2009 O’Reilly article helped to better understand why this is so and gave a nice update to the original article. Essentially we now carry the Web around with us. This fact and the continual uploading of a variety of content by many users make it a readily accessible and current source of information, connection, business and entertainment. In short, “the Web is now the world” (Battelle & O’Reilly, 2009).
Web 2.0 is now such a part of everyday tasks it is almost useless to speculate on life without it. It is intrinsic to the creation, categorisation and distribution of much of today’s information, particularly to the younger generations that we need to reach as part of information organisations. In addition, even those that feel most disconnected in the physical world invariably find connections online. This information sharing, connected reality is fast-paced, overwhelming and sometimes, it feels, completely full of nonsense that we shouldn’t really be wasting our time with, such as celebrity selfies or posting about change rather than making any. However, if the pitfalls can be successfully navigated, web 2.0 provides endless possibilities for marketing, collaboration, discovery, connecting with the community and more. As I delve further into this subject I am looking forward to learning more about the possibilities and how to take advantage of them.
References
Battelle, J, & O’Reilly, T. (2009). Web squared: Web 2.0 five years on. Retrieved from http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194Battelle
O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business modules for the next generation of software. Retrieved from http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
Schwerdtfeger, P. (2013, March 17). What is web 2.0? What is social media? What comes next?? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iStkxcK6_vY
Web 2.0. (n.d). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 15, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0