There is a lot of misconception about what this technology represents. If you asked ten different people to define Web 2.0, you would most likely get ten different answers. The term Web 2.0 was made popular at the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 Conference held in 2004, to discuss the new layer of present-day web services comprised of a second generation of web-based communities and hosting companies, such as AffordableHostingToday.com. Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media (formerly O’Reilly & Associates) and a stark sponsor of the free software and open source movements, is commonly credited for coining the term Web 2.0.

Some common terms associated with this self-styled web version are blogging, mash-up, SOA, and RIA (Rich Internet Applications) such as FLASH and AJAX. The main purpose of RIA is to help bring familiar experiences from the desktop into the users browser. Additionally, a major component of Web 2.0 is SOA (Service Oriented Architectures), which offers a model for business processes independent of the operating systems or programming languages supporting those applications in which functionality is broken up into distinct services and further joined together and reused to construct business applications.

The Social Web is a big part of Web 2.0, which encourages genuine interactivity and an increased peer-to-peer relationship between users and providers. This forum provides a social aspect of the web to create and circulate content with the ability to share and recycle information. The end user becomes more of a participant and an integral part of the data. Some of these social technologies include blogs, wikis (forum software to support user-generated content), RSS feeds, web services, APIs, and of course eBay and Gmail, to name just a few.

A common phrase which captures the heart of Web 2.0 is “Don’t Fight the Internet”. In essence, Web 2.0 is a response to a business transformation whereby the internet is used as a platform which defines the standards for this new dais. However, the term has come under attack over the years. The fact that most of the core technology of the web has not changed has caused some people to criticize the term Web 2.0.

JLK
California State University, Northridge