WAIT, WHAT’S WEB 1.0???

THE WORLD WIDE WEB (AKA: The reason websites begin with “WWW”)  The Web is a system of interconnected hypertext documents accessed via the internet.  Prior to the invention of the web, the internet could only be used to transfer plaintext information.

IT LOOKED PRETTY BORING:

HYPERTEXT Like regular text, but better!  The development of hypertext led to some important innovations:  Hyperlinking  Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)  Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)  Pretty pictures

WEB 1.0  During the 1990s, the popularity of the World Wide Web skyrocketed. New websites were popping up every day, with new and exciting content for all tastes.  Owning a top-level domain name meant you had made it in the world; website creation was in high demand.  In fact, owning a.com domain or simply adding the prefix “e-” to your company name meant your stock price could potentially double overnight.

BUT THEN… It turns out if you don’t have a product to sell, people stop giving you money. The “dot-com bubble” and collapse heralded the end of Web 1.0, or the content-driven era.

2.0 at the end of things makes them seem more advanced It turns out writing

WEB 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO  Though coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, the phrase did not become popular until 2004 following its use by Tim O’Reilly at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Conference.  While it suggests a wholly new version of the original world wide web, it’s not actually a technical upgrade regarding how the web works.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH, WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?  The key difference between 1.0 and 2.0 is a shift from an environment of few creators and many consumers to an environment where the consumers are themselves creators.  Rather than passively retrieving information, users can now collaborate, network, and create new content.

Web 2.0 is defined by a few key features, such as:  User/Mass Participation  Folksonomy  A Rich User Experience  The Long Tail

USER PARTICIPATION  Information now flows both ways between site owner and site user.  Users are invited to create accounts, comment, discuss, and otherwise actively contribute as opposed to simply consuming information.  This can be seen in the rise of collaborative and social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, et al.

MASS PARTICIPATION  Moreover, the stream of new users is essentially ceaseless.  New demographics and content userbases are being created every day, with niche interest groups flourishing about as well as wider interest groups.

FOLKSONOMY  The free classification of information via tags.  This is a collaborative practice that is fairly new, and democratizes the categorization of information online.  Now search engines can retrieve both hypertext data and metadata, increasing the accuracy of web searches.

RICH USER EXPERIENCE  Web content is now dynamic rather than static; it responds to user input.  An example is YouTube’s “suggested video” feature, which will try to suggest videos similar to ones you have recently viewed.

THE LONG TAIL  The long tail is an economic concept not fully realized until the rise of Web content and Web 2.0 in particular.  The traditional supply/demand model would only work if there was a known market; niche interests could not recoup the costs needed to produce content for them.

THE LONG TAIL (SURPRISINGLY LITERAL)

AMAZON AND FRIENDS  Web distribution has stretched the playing field, thanks to a dramatically lowered cost of distribution.  Services can now cater to increasingly niche interests through “ala carte” or on-demand services, with little to no distribution overhead.

SIMPLY PUT: If you want to create something, you no longer have to tailor your work to the lowest common denominator. Many creators now make a comfortable living catering to niche audiences through web services like Kindle or Bandcamp.

BUT DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT: If you like extra credit (and who doesn’t?),when you get home, open up your web browser and navigate to Make a free account, write an introductory post, and then me the URL/web address of your new blog. This will replace your lowest daily grade with a