What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 has become an essential part of our life. Think about all the applications that you use online; YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flicker,..,etc . Despite the extensive usage of Web 2.0 applications, lots of Internet users or computer professionals still do not understand the term.  The term web 2.0 refers to the second generation of web development and web design. Darcy DiNucci first introduced it in 1999 in her article “Fragmented Future,” The term became popular after it was used in a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International in 2004.

The first part of Web 2.0 is Rich Internet Applications (RIA). This simply means how to bring the experience from the desktop into the web browser whether it is from a graphical point of view or usability point of view. The second part of Web 2.0 is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) such as Feeds, RSS and Web Services. Web 2.0 exposes applications functionality in order to let other application to leverage the functionality providing much more set of applications.  The third part is the Social Web, which allowed the end user to participate in creating content rather than just use the application. Blogging, Wikis and Podcasting are all examples of how the end user participates in adding additional content.

There are three major technologies that support Web 2.0:

1-    Ajax supported web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari)
2-    A language that supports web services.
3-    An iterative language.

Sources:
http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LzQIUANnHc

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