Web 2.0 Explained
June 8, 2006
The Internet is buzzing these days about the emergence of what people call ‘Web 2.0’. It’s important for web designers to understand what this is, because it affects all web design.
IN A NUTSHELL: Web 2.0 is a combination of factors/elements that leads to a much more social, interactive Web. Here is a short list of some of the key elements that make Web 2.0 possible:
- AJAX allows for the rise of the truly ‘rich’ Web user experience: web pages that act like desktop programs … no need to refresh entire pages to see new content on the page.
- Auto-syndication (sharing of content) via RSS/XML feeds – and software that allows you to easily create and access these XML feeds.
- New ways to mass-communicate over the Web – podcast (mp3) and video.
BLOGS GOT THE WHOLE THING GOING
Blogging tools like WordPress and TextPattern got the whole thing going: most blogs automatically create RSS feeds.
Blogs also make it easier than ever before, for people to write content for the Web. No need for Web design software like FrontPage or Dreamweaver and no need to know HTML.
As such, there has been an explosion of content creation of the Web: people are writing like crazy! The three points to take away from this is:
- Blogs make it simple to (essentially) create web pages.
- Blogs automatically syndicate/share content via RSS.
- Blogs make it easy for readers to interact with blogger’s (the authors,) via a built-in system that allows people to make comments … the social aspect enabled.
WEB 2.0 IS MORE THAN JUST BLOGGING
Another major characteristic of Web 2.0 is the remixing and combining of information from many different sources.
For example:
A Web 2.0 web site may grab many RSS feeds and massage them into a new filtered presentation. The advantage is that users can now access this information from one spot, instead of having to visit many different sites.
CONCLUSION
This (automated) sharing and mixing of content/information (between people and websites,) along with ‘rich’ Web user experience is Web 2.0.
… and you thought it was something more!
🙂
