As the communications intern at World Wide Creative there is more than a lot I still need to learn about the web and online media. Even though I regard myself as someone who can use the web efficiently, I find it vital to know the platform I am working with – not just how to work it but what it is. I’ve heard of terms such as Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 but never understood what they were.
To start off, it is important to know the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web. The internet is actually a public system/network of computers accessible to everyone, everywhere (hardware). Most importantly it provides access to the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web functions within the Internet as a service provided by the Internet.
Ben Ramsey thinks of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 as “‘eras’ of the Web”. Web 1.0 would represent the first decade of the Web (1990-1999), which he calls the ‘read-only Web’. The term, Web 1.0, is mostly used to contrast the earlier days of the Web before blogs, social networking sites and Web-based applications became routine. Web 2.0 would then be the second decade (2000-2009), which he calls the ‘read-write Web’. This implies that not only does the Web connect to its users by giving them information but vice versa, allowing users to connect to companies and each other.
Web 2.0 has for some become a mere marketing buzzword with no real understanding of what it means. Now, there is still disagreement about what Web 2.0 means but to show The best of Web 2.0 technology, I gathered some information on a few of the most important sites and features. This should give you a pretty good idea of what is meant by Web 2.0.
Micro blogging is an important feature of Web 2.0. It is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates, photos or audio clips and publish them. To upload and share photo’s online Flickr enables you to tag photos and search for specific content of photos. Vimeo could easily be described as the video counterpart of flickr.com. I guess you can mention YouTube in the same breath. When it comes to social bookmarking Del.icio.us allows its users to keep track of their favourite items on the web including music, websites, movies and lots more. Twitter is a text-based example of a social networking and micro-blogging service that lets its users send and read each others’ updates, known as tweets.
Another important feature of Web 2.0 would be RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This feature is used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a structured format. It filters through the web to collect the latest information on specific websites of the user’s choice. It benefits readers who want to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.
Through social networks such as Facebook it is clear that web culture has revolutionized. The whole system of social interaction has evolved. Experts have already started predicting Web 3.0 and what it would be like. There are some who believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant that learns what you are interested in through a memory of sites you frequently visit. Ben Ramsey calls it the next decade of the Web (2010-2019). He predicts that there will be a widespread backlash as Web 3.0 begins to affect the mainstream culture. Ramsey suspects that only by 2015 we’ll really know how Web 3.0 will play out and the affect it will have on the world we live in today.
Read more posts by Yolandi Janse van Rensburg
Related posts:
