The Birth & Growth of Web 2.0 COM 415-Fall II Ashley Velasco (Prince)

Web 2.0 is more than just a phrase, or new web trend it is a way of life for now for most users and companies now a days. It is a compilation of many different technologies that many of us take for granted. Many of us can not imagine a world without YouTube, Facebook or Google. These are just a few of the web technologies that have evolved to make Web 2.0 so successful. There are many other elements that help make up this elaborate and extensive web environment.

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

Search Engines

 Users can now basically find anything they want due to growth of search engines like Google, Yahoo and Ask.  Search engines can lead users to social networks, blog sites, educational websites, personal websites, etc.  Now these search engines even have image viewing, current news and even widgets for the user to utilize.  Recently, location-based searches have become increasingly popular. Based on the users IP address or GPS location the results from the search will be near the users location.  Due to PageRank, results are returned to the user based on user popularity. Higher ranking pages show up closer to the top of the page.

User Generated Content Sites

 User generated content plays a huge part in the internet and all of the media and information that can be found online.  Internet users can get on many websites and contribute their own input or media.  Users can even make purchases online or list their own items to be bought by other users.  It is also pretty convenient that users can use the internet to located apartment vacancies, homes for sale and even find adopt a pet.  A big trend online now is that job seekers and potential employers can now post job, career and internship openings.

Blogging Sites

 Blogging sites are the biggest phenomenon that has arrived from Web 2.0.  Blogs are used by company executives to raise morale to their employees, celebrities to give the average person an insight to their life from day-to-day, and for anyone that wants to take the time to create and update their entries.  Users can find blogs on pretty much any topic. They can be used as educational sources or as a way to simply keep up with someone’s personal life.  In these blogs, users can add links to other pages, pictures or even videos.  A neat feature is the ability to leave comments on these blog sites.

Social Networks

 Social networks have become a huge hit for all internet users in the past few years.  Websites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have become highly-sought after websites.  MySpace and Facebook give users a way to keep in touch with friends, families and potentially make new friendships.  These websites also allow for photo sharing, video blogging and even music playing.  Twitter is a website that has really grown in popularity where users can follow the status updates of friends, celebrities and even politicians.

Social Media

 Social media has become increasingly popular among web users of all ages.  The big talked about page is YouTube where users can look up videos from instructional, education, music, comedy or even news.  There is also websites like Photobucket where users can find pictures that other users have uploaded and use the link to post them on their page. They can even make an account and upload their own pictures.  Since Apple’s IPod has become some popular some users even utilize the podcast feature available. Podcasts are like radio talk shows.  All of these websites like Facebook and EBay are possible due to user generated content.

Location-Based Services

 A new feature from Web 2.0 is the use of location-based services.  GPS, or global positioning systems, are now a very common object found in cars and even on cell phones.  With GPS, websites like Google Maps & MapQuest have really taken off in the use by users everywhere. You can get online and look up driving directions, find the location of a place on the map and even see a “street level” view of it so, you know what it looks like.  Using the users IP address or GPS itself, search results will be brought up that are closest to the user’s current position.

New User Technology

 Not only has the actual interface changed with Web 2.0 but now it is more user-friendly. Thanks to AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, websites have more advanced interfaces called GUIs.  AJAX makes the web pages more responsive and faster all around by being able to update a certain part of the page instead of waiting for the entire page to load like in the past.  APIs, or application programming interfaces, give the user the ability to access other services and external databases.  With the help of mashups and widgets, more users are being introduced to these APIs. Widgets are added to page to personalize or add reference points about weather, time, etc. Mashups include sites that combine the use of two sources to provide information or services for the user.

Beyond Web 2.0 Like all technologies, the web is slowly evolving to bigger and better things. A lot of talk is going around to what the next web trends will be released. Some of them include the following items:  Semantic web—which is basically the changing of the web into a language that all computers can read.  Artificial intelligence—which will include the attempt to extract meaning from the way users search.  Personalization—use of widgets, mashups and other objects to contextualize the web based on the user.  Mobility—gives all users the ability to access the web at all time from everywhere.