Web 2.0 : The Changing Face Of The Web

Web 2.0 represents the changing face of the Web, facilitating user participation, information exchange, collaborative development and new business models in the form of service.

The Internet can be described as a huge global network of smaller computer networks geographically distributed all over the planet, but World Wide Web connotes the corpus human understandable information shared over this network. While data packets, connectivity, email, IMs and all abstract data, meaningless to an average literate human can be considered as core elements of the Internet, the Web’s core elements would consist of all meaningful data and services and protocols providing those data. For instance, HTML is the building block of the Web and all services like web-portals, e-commerce sites, boards, forums and all sites that contain content and information meaningful to the human users would in essence be part of the Web.

The architecture of the web and human nature to interact and socialize led to evolution of Web 2.0 also called Social Web. Despite what the nomenclature may indicate Web 2.0 is no way a software upgrade or even software but a moniker to the define the changing pattern of computer and internet usage. Web 2.0 concept encapsulates the emerging trend of using information technology for social interactions, information sharing and collaborative development.

The chief characteristics of Web 2.0 can be enumerated as –

Web as platform – Build business by leveraging the strengths of the Internet instead of trying to customize features of the Internet to conform to traditional business models. While traditional software applications including Web 1.0 applications were monolithic systems which stressed on privacy of data and organizational control over the entire system, Web 2.0 software on the other hand are as distributed and open as could be possible. Multiple services, powered mainly by user-generated data and inter-operating among themselves is one of the key features of Web 2.0 paradigm. As of yet, the "platform" implied a PC and a huge and integrated suite of software but with the emergence of Web 2.0 architecture, the whole Web can and is being used as a "platform"

Architecture of participation - Users adding value is one of the most important aspect of Web 2.0 concept. Most of the popular Web 2.0 services are wholly supported by users. Wikipedia is one of the finest examples of "wisdom of the crowd" and what O'Reilly calls "radical trust". Well, if you are reading this, you have just had an exposure to the architecture of participation :)

Harnessing Collective Intelligence - The Web is fast becoming a huge labyrinth of data generated by users, and it needs to be organized and categorized to be of real use. So harnessing collective intelligence can be considered the core of the compendium of concepts called Web 2.0. While Wikipedia and blogging are examples of collective intelligence being harnessed through concerted effort of volunteers, services providing bookmarking, folksnomy and tagging in general show how collective intelligence can be harnessed in a very distrubed and flexible manner. This approach is very similar to the Open Source Software approach. The web of services , the Cloud and architecture of participation closely resemble "the chaotic baazar", that Eric Raymond mentions in his essay, "The Cathedral And The Baazar".

Software as service - Build software not as packaged product but as service available through browsers.

Rich user experience – Web 2.0 sites are found to feature richer and more user-friendly interface using different technologies such as Ajax, Flash, Silverlight, Flex, OpenLaszo and the content and media vary from vector based graphics and animations to videos.

Software for multiple devices - Web 2.0 software aim to transcend the limitation of being available to computers only, they are increasingly being provided to other devices too including PDAs, Smartphones, iPod etc.

In contrast to other software architecture where applications have been created keeping the architecture in mind, the Web 2.0 architecture itself has been defined by some popular applications.

Blogger, Wordpress - Blogging (user-generated content/HCI)

Bittorrent - P2P file-sharing (decentralized, service becomes better through use)

Ebay - Online auctions (user participation, SaaS)

Amazon - E-commerce (user participation, light-weight programming model)

Double-click (formerly Adsense) - Online advertisement (web as platform)

Wikipedia - Wiki [users created/editable content] (user-generated content/HCI)

Google Docs - Online application, document sharing (light-weight programming model)

Skype - VOIP (SaaS. web as platform)

Flickr - Media-sharing, folksnomy (user participation, sharing, HCI)

Youtube - Video sharing (user-generated content,sharing, RUI)

Digg - Social bookmarking ccc

Delicious - Folksnomy (tagging,collaboration, sharing , HCI)

Facebook, Orkut, MySpace - Social networking (user participation, sharing, web as platform)

Twitter - Microblogging (user participation, user-generated content, HCI)

These are some of the popular services that define the Web 2.0 architecture, I may have missed out some applications or included some that shouldn't have been here. If that is the case do correct me by dropping a comment.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=1

A Brief History of The World Wide Web

Not many people know that the Internet was outcome of a military venture and not a glorious venture either. The ARPA, the precursor to the internet, was launched by the Department of Defense of the US government in response to Soviet Union's launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. The objective was to develop a mechanism which would allow the US military to retain control and counter-attack in case of a nuclear attack. At the height of the Cold War both USA and USSR were obsessed with developing "the first strike capability" since it was believed that with the destructive power both nuclear powers possessed, the party attacking first would annihilate or at least incapaciate the enemy. It was the fear of this scenario that led DoD to research and develop a mechanism that would allow the military to control nuclear missiles and bombers even if all US sites had been destroyed in the first strike. Thus ARPA/DARPA was a military apparatus and continued to exist as such though civilian researchers were being accommodated with the passage of time.