Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0? Is it a new technology? The latest version of the Internet? Web 2.0 is neither, rather it's a concept, an approach to developing web solutions that lays emphasis on active participation and interaction among people. The idea is to allow people to become active contributors to websites

Web 2.0 offers the web as a platform of services wherein applications and people can easily interact to collaborate and share information.

Some of the Web 2.0 technologies and tools include the following:

• Social Networking: Websites that provide a forum for like minded people to meet and interact with each other such as MySpace, Facebook, Flickr etc

• RSS Feeds: A mechanism by which people and distribute and syndicate content.

• Blogs: Provides users with an easy mechanism to publish content on the web.

• Social Bookmarking: Allows users to categorize and store a list of resources collated from all over the web. Other, in turn, can search and view these lists.

• APIs: Enable applications to interact with each other

• Rich Internet Applications: Provide a faster and more interactive and dynamic browsing experience to the users by using technologies such as AJAX, Flash etc.

• Wikis: A means for people to collaborate and publish content on the Internet.

Web 2.0 promotes viral marketing. Websites that follow the web 2.0 techniques and practices attract greater exposure resulting in an increase in site traffic.

Features
The features of Web 2.0 are as follows:

• Empowering Users: Web 2.0 applications empower users to create, publish and share content over the web. Services such as blogs etc enables users to generate and publish content.

• Software as a Service: In web 2.0 websites offer web applications as services to users.

• Interactive User Experience: Websites that have simple and easy to use interfaces.

• Networking: Web 2.0 applications enable the creation and promotion of online social networking communities.

At Open Source Development, we make use of a host of technologies and techniques such as AJAX, CSS etc to develop Web 2.0 applications.