What is Web 2.0?

You've no doubt heard the term "Web 2.0" by now and may be wondering - What exactly is it?

Well fear not intrepid Internet surfer, Cincinnati's Internet marketing Czar is hear to help and tell you about an upcoming local event where you can learn more.

Over the next few weeks I'll be posting a series of articles on Web 2.0 and social media to help get you up to speed, including information on the types of social media, business uses of social media and case study examples.  Today let's start by defining web 2.0.

A great page to check out (and also good example of web 2.0 in action) is the Web 2.0 page on Wikipedia.  There we learn that Web 2.0 is "a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users."

Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media is credited with coming up with the term and in late 2006 posted a compact Web 2.0 definition and explanation you also might want to check out in which he stated it another way: "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.  Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them"

So instead of the Web being a place for one-way communication between website owners and visitors, in Web 2.0 website visitors can communicate and collaborate with the website owners or content producers and other people so that everyone is better off for the interaction.

If you're in the Cincinnati area and interested in this topic, The Circuit is having a Breakfast Bytes event on Thursday May 22nd on "What is Web 2.0" at the Embassy Suites in Blue Ash.  You can see the details and register on The Circuit website.

I hope you'll come back or subscribe to our RSS feed to learn more about Web 2.0 and other Internet marketing topics and post your comments or questions.   

   

Comments

[Rob Bunting]

Thank you to emarketed and Sheree for your comments and I couldn't agree more.

Static displays of information (more often than not only about the person or orgranization posting it) often provide little value to the site visitor.

Many of the people claiming to be new media experts spend more time patting themselves on the back for their brilliance than in educating those less experienced in these new technologies, educating folks and considering new & differing viewpoints. Here's to hoping that together we can change that by embracing the ideas of collaboration and helping people.

[Sheree Motiska]

If only the majority of self proclaimed social media marketers would use these web 2.0 sites for the purpose of enhancing user experience and adding to the collective intelligence, we'd all be peachy.

Sheree "The Social Media Butterfly" Motiska

[emarketed]

website won’t succeed in today’s rapidly changing online marketing environment if it’s simply a static display of information….