Web 2.0 Essentials, Part 1: What Is It?

Thursday, September 14th, 2006 | web

Several people asked me recently what “Web 2.0″ means, and why everybody is talking about it. Of course, I hear all you Wired readers and dotcom survivors out there scoffing at the mere thought that somebody might not know what this term means. However, not all of us live in Silicon Valley, and it seems like there are as many definitions as there are people talking about it.

The expression “Web 2.0″ suggests that once upon a time, there was a “Web 1.0″ – a version of the world wide web based upon static, often outdated information silos. Many of today’s websites are, of course, still static, siloed and outdated; however, over the course of the last 3-4 years, many sites emerged which use the internet to do more than just display information – they use interactive features to make the information useful for people.

There are four big definition groups of what “Web 2.0″ stands for:

1. The shift from static websites to web platforms delivering interactive services: Instead of a retail store website displaying a list of available products and a shopping cart, you get an online shop giving you recommendations based upon your previous purchases, a wish list function, and the possibility to manage and track the shipping of your packages. Example: Amazon.com
2. The approach of using social networks to decentralize, generate, and share web content: It’s not a group of webmasters who has the authority over the content of a site - it’s everybody who uses the site. The users input can be anything from comments (as in blogs), to aproval ratings (as in digg), to content changes (as in WikiPedia), to social connections (as in MySpace).
3. The emergence of semantic content structures through categories and meta-information: The web was built on a simple principle – the ability to connect text through hyperlinks. If you use links in combination with meta-information, you get the tag – a category that helps you understand the web in its structure and find new, useful content. If you share tags among a group of people, you get folksonomy services such as del.icio.us and flickr. (It’s probably the most difficult principle to understand in this list – to learn more, read the folksonomy article on WikiPedia).
4. An business fad – the coming of a new and improved dotcom age: In this context, Web 2.0 is used as a pure buzzword to sell services and raise capital.

My own understanding of Web 2.0 is a mix of the second and third definition. I also subscribe to the criticism of point 4 – everything and nothing nowadays gets a Web 2.0 stamp, and since the usefulness of web applications comes from people sharing and structuring information freely, it’s economic value is limited.  Yes, you can make money with Web 2.0 services, but it’s not such a central component. In that respect, I see strong parallels to the open source movement.

In Part 2 of this series, I will tell you about useful web services you should know about.

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