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what is web2.0?

Posted by simon ashwin On Tuesday 27 Nov 07

Web 2.0 is one of those phrases which we’re hearing a lot about currently. Everybody says they’re very excited about it but do they really know what it is?

So what is Web 2.0?
Well, in the simplest terms it’s the phrase being applied to ‘the second coming’ of the internet. Dot-com investors are partying like it’s 1999 and a number of pioneering online services are very much keeping that party exciting, getting everybody talking about the internet once more and its increasing relevance to our lives.

Such as what?
Well, Web 2.0 is a bit of a catch-all which covers a broad range of new online services, user-generated content, communities and social networking tools. The most popular are sites such as Blogger, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia and the Godfather of Web 2.0 - Google. The phrase also refers to the creation of far greater levels of interactivity, not just between users, or between users and the internet but between complementary online services through mash-ups and web services.

So this is all consumer stuff - photo-sharing and the like?
That’s where a lot of the energy is coming from and the services doing the early running have absolutely been focused on driving and exploiting end-user trends. However, the idea that the web is ‘where it’s at’ is not lost on big business. For example Web 2.0 covers ’software as a service’ (SaaS) - companies are being told they no longer have to buy software but instead...

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demystefying web 2.0

Posted by simon ashwin On Saturday 03 Mar 07

cerpt from  ”Social Media” or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Communication” by Trevor Cook and Lee Hopkins (June 20, 2007)

The traditional means of communicating with audiences — such as employees, customers, investment communities — have relied heavily on print-based documents, email or static internet websites.

Today, these methods are rapidly giving way to a new generation of internet-based tools that allow for far greater levels of two-way interaction, discussion and conversation.

The media no longer owns the audience. Scarcity is no longer the problem. The internet is infinitely scalable. Text, audio and video are available to everyone. The Internet is now the world’s most powerful publishing and broadcasting platform. It is growing exponentially.

The new web tools are cheap (often free), easy to use and fast to produce. Communicating can become seamlessly integrated with your ‘regular’ workload. Everyone can communicate – not just the corporate communications team!

The new immediacy and integration can energise your communications releasing a relationship building power that has been absent from oldstyle corporate communication tools.

Indeed, so fundamental has been the shift from ’static’, ‘brochure-ware’ websites to the new ‘conversational’ internet that many pundits are calling the ‘old’ internet “Web1.0″ and this new web world “Web2.0″, reflecting dramatic improvement based in large part on in far better software coding and functionality.

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