Web 2.0 is a phrase O'Reilly Media came up in 2003 in order to describe a new generation of web-based communities and the term was popularized at the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004, conference at which the term was presented as seeing the internet as a platform. Since then many meanings have been added to "Web 2.0" and this concept is starting to have a shape.There has also been a Web 1.0 and the most striking difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 users is their type of connection to the Internet. The Web 1.0 user had dial-up accounts and the time they spent on the Internet had to be well used since every minute had to be paid. If it weren't for the broadband connections the Web 2.0 culture would have never probably came to happening.
Stephen Fry, actor, author and broadcaster, describes Web 2.0 more like an idea existing in people's heads rather than reality. He highlights the reciprocity between user and provider and shows that people can upload as well as they can download. At first sight Web 2.0 may seem to refer to technical improvements brought to the Internet, but it's nothing like that, since it intends to change the ways software developers and the users use the Internet as a platform. Therefore Web 2.0 is a social phenomena characterized by an open approach to the Internet with authority decentralization and the freedom of re-use and share. It also is the transition of websites from isolated silos to computing platforms.
O'Reilly regards Web 2.0 as a business which takes advantage of the global audience for example and he considers "don't fight the Internet", Eric Schmidt's abridged slogan, as the best one to describe the attitude they represent. Tim O'Reilly also set up a four lever hierarchy of Web 2.0-ness providing this way examples of companies and products for whom this approach of the Internet works. On the highest level, level 3, he situated eBay, craiglist, Wikipedia, Skype, applications which can only exist on the Internet and which are growing in effectiveness the more people use them. Level 2 consists out of applications that can work offline, but which offer advantages when online like Flickr. Level 1-applications are also available offline but gain features online, like iTunes. Level 0 are not web orientated services like e-mail, instant messaging and telephone.
A typical Web 2.0 practice is blogging. Although this mass phenomenon seems to have appeared out of nowhere, it has a history dating since 1999 when services making blogging possible appeared. Even when blogging does not use Web 2.0 technology, it spreads it and is therefore very important for this culture.A typical Web 2.0 website would include technology such as: rich Internet application techniques, CSS, micro-formats and semantically valid HTML, meaningful URLs, folksomies, wiki software, open source software such as the LAMP solution track, mashups and search engine capability for a widely used of keywords.
Criticism brought to Web 2.0 starts with the lack of standards of what it actually means and carries on with the reproach which came from venture capitalist Josh Kopelman, that too few people got excited for Web 2.0 in order to keep it an economically viable target. Technology experts like Tim Berners-Lee question whether it is possible to use the term Web 2.0 in a meaningful way since most technology they use had been developed before.Web 2.0 belonging as a trademark is currently pending. Since the Web 2.0 service passed the final PTO Examine in May 2006, but the PTO has not published the mark for opposition.
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