Monday, March 30, 2009

What Is Web 2.0?

Web 1.0 was focused on a relatively small number of companies and advertisers producing content for users to access—some people called the web at the time the “brochure web.” Web 2.0involves the user—not only is the content often created by users, but users help organize it, share it, remix it, critique it, update it, etc. One way to look at Web 1.0 is as a lecture, a small number of professors informing a large audience of students. In comparison, Web 2.0 is aconversation, with everyone having the opportunity to speak and share views.

Web 2.0 embraces an architecture of participation—a design that encourages user interaction and community contributions. You, the user, are the most important aspect of Web 2.0—so important, in fact, that in 2006, TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year” was “you.” The article recognized the social phenomenon of Web 2.0—the shift away from a powerful few to an empowered many.

We cant be device centric...we must be user centric.

Bill Gates, MIX06 conference

Many Web 2.0 companies are built almost entirely on user-generated content and harnessing collective intelligence. The significance is not just in having user-generated content, but in how it is used. Google—the leading search engine and Internet advertising company—sends its users to user-generated websites by considering what users collectively have valued in the past. For websites like MySpace®, Flickr™, YouTube and Wikipedia®, users create the content, while the sites provide the platforms. These companies trust their users—without such trust, users cannot make significant contributions to the sites.

A platform beats an application every time.

Tim O’Reilly

The architecture of participation is seen in software development as well. Open software is available for anyone to use and modify with few or no restrictions—this has played a major role in Web 2.0 development. Harnessing collective intelligence, communities collaborate to develop software that many people believe is better than proprietary software.

You, the user, are not only contributing content and developing open source software, but you are also directing how media is delivered, and deciding which news and information outlets you trust. Many popularblogs now compete with traditional media powerhouses. Social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia allow users to recommend their favorite sites to others. Social media sites such as Digg™ or Reddit enable the community to decide which news articles are the most significant. You are also changing the way we find the information on these sites by tagging (i.e., labeling) web content by subject or keyword in a way that helps anyone locate information more effectively. This is just one of the ways Web 2.0 helps users identify new meaning in already existing content.RSS feeds (Chapter 14, XML and RSS) enable you to receive new information as it is updated—pushing the content right to your desktop.

The rise ofsocial networks has changed the way we interact and network. MySpace— the largest social network—has rapidly become the world’s most popular website. Other popular social networking sites include Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, and Second Life—a 3D virtual world where you interact with others via your online persona called an avatar.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content has been the key to success for many of today’s leading Web 2.0 companies, such as Amazon, eBay and Monster. The community adds value to these sites, which, in many cases, are almost entirely built on user-generated content. For example, eBay (an online auction site) relies on the community to buy and sell auction items, and Monster (a job search engine) connects job seekers with employers and recruiters.

User-generated content includes explicitly generated content such as articles, home videos and photos. It can also include implicitly generated content—information that is gathered from the users’ actions online. For example, every product you buy from Amazon and every video you watch on YouTube provides these sites with valuable information about your interests. Companies like Amazon have developed massive databases of anonymous user data to understand how users interact with their site. For example, Amazon uses your purchase history and compares it to purchases made by other users with similar interests to make personalized recommendations (e.g., “customers who bought this item also bought...”). Implicitly generated content is often considered hidden content. For example, web links and tags are hidden content; every site you link to from your own site or bookmark on a social bookmarking site could be considered a vote for that site’s importance. Search engines such as Google (which uses the PageRank algorithm) use the number and quality of these links to a site to determine the importance of a site in search results.

Source:

http://www.deitel.com/eBook/WhatIsWeb20/tabid/2483/Default.aspx

https://php.radford.edu/~tlc/wordpress/

9 comments:

koksiang1991 said...

Some information on Google may not be reliable. Therefore, we have to learn to filter out useful articles.

However, cannot deny that Internet is a good tool to gather informstion.

Realist is what they call me. said...

Speaking about web 2.0 in a positive light, it actually allows us to gather unlimited information in many forms, eg. pie chart, bar graph etc.

But similarly, it also has a flip-side, in the sense that, because of the vast amount of information uploaded by netizens, these information can, and tend to be biased and unreliable.

Tout ensemble, web 2.0 is like a heaven and hell/double-edged sword - it isn't totally perfect and flawless, and neither is it totally reproachable; ultimately, you'll need to be careful when it comes to filtering out relevant and helpful information.

Lantis said...

For me, I feel that web 2.0 is a relatively useful way to share information and content. It is also a portal to allow people to get closer to each other and communicate with each other.

However, with every convience of the web, there will of course be people who mis use these benefits.

The web can be a portal for crimes and spreading of wrong ideologies, such as terrorism.

Thus, it is undeniable that web 2.0 is beneficial but it is one's way of useage to determine whether it is useful or harmful

Preshant said...

Web 2.0 does not represent a new version of the World Wide Web at all. It is merely continuing to use Web 1.0 technologies and concepts. For example, personal web pages were common in Web 1.0, while nowadays,blogs and social networking profiles, such as Myspace and Facebook, are more popular, allowing for readers to comment on posts in a way that was not available during Web 1.0.

However, it is good that Web 2.0 encourages user participation.This will lead to more dynamic content to appear on the web.

Unknown said...

web 2.0 opens up communication channel for the people, it gives the users more chance to voice out their opinions. however, some may abuse this by touching on sensitive topics such as the religion and race. this may cause unhappiness and conflicts and the person who posted it might also get into trouble. therefore i believe that people should be responsible and mature enough when using web 2.0

qimin toh said...

Web 2.0 has greatly enable people to communicate with each other, share of their thoughts,obtain information from etc

Unknown said...

I feel that web 2.0 is a very good tool for users who genuinely want to contribute. I also feel that it is an excellent outlet through which you can find out the opinions of other people on the same subject. But I also feel that it can potentially dangerous when misused.

Web 2.0 allows for people to share, view and comment on different views. It also allows for the sharing between people of different countries and cultures.

Overall, Web 2.0 is a powerful tool that is a double-edged sowrd. When used by the right people for the right reasons, it can greatly contribute to society. But if it is abused by irresponsible users, it can be potentially harmful to any person let alone country.

HANIM said...

2.0 isn't always useful, but it's certainly given us more choose from.

Kiren said...

Web 2.0 is an interesting tool. It helps us access more. But that access is only limited to those who have access to the internet.Hence whether or not it makes a significant contribution to society is questionable.
NO doubt it can act as a double edges sword for users may abuse their position on the web to cause for detriments than benefits. Whatever its sideeffects, there is no doubt that this has revolutionised the way society functions. For instance, web 2.0 has created the facebook generation and with a click of the mouse (pardon the cliche) we can access wealth of information .