What Is Web 2.0

So what is all this fuss about Web 2.0? And what does it offer in terms of user experience?

For me it is the term that defines the move from Geocities to Blogger. The web like all technology is developing and as we become better at understanding it and what we want to do with it, like any market its supply and demand. We are becoming more sophisticated at delivering to meet that demand.

Since the beginning of the web, our fundamentally social nature meant people have wanted to put themselves online and connect with others in one capacity or another, at first primarily through personal websites such as Geocities, but now through blogs; which offer an online diary service.

So where's the difference? Well Web 2.0 is generally services that offer a far richer user experience, through the latest technologies, and integral to many of these so called Web 2.0 services are the fact that they require a social network and interaction to succeed. Napster allows you to share music, Flickr to share photographs and BitTorrent to share whatever you like, whilst Wikipedia relies on community contributions.

Community is not the defining feature of Web 2.0 however, more a reflection of how we want to be able to use the web. Other web 2.0 services, such as Google maps, don’t rely on community but offer a rich user experience, particularly through innovative interfaces.

Web 2.0 is making best use of technology to offer the user an engaging experience; the key to which is the user interface and the experience from that. As a web designer or interface designer it is up to you to step up to the mark.

What is Web 2.0?