Web 2.0

Written by

Hector Hurtado

in

Latest buzz or real revolution, what is Web 2.0 really about?

Frequent readers will have noticed that I have touched on fairly technical subjects lately, although the idea was more to inform and share knowledge than to get our hands dirty with code. The reason why I told you about and was in fact to smoothly introduce a topic on the latest web buzz: Web 2.0

Wikipedia has a great entry on , so it would be redundant to repeat it all here. I will however, rephrase its core definition.

The first web, or Web 1.0 was mostly made of static pages. Updating such pages was rare, and when performed, it would involve require the efforts of one man (the webmaster) to a whole team (webmaster, web designer, web developer, HTML integrator, translator, website coordinator…), depending on the scale and weight of the website. The task would soon be seen as a tedious and error-prone job, so database-driven websites and applications were quickly developed: the era of can be seen as Web 1.5. What about Web 2.0? What is supposedly so different today than before?

My take on the recent evolution is that the web has changed hand in hand with modern development methodologies and the Open Source movement. IT professionals paved the development road with heavy technical and functional analysis. While this approach was (and still is) necessary for large scale applications, it was not as suitable for small projects, where less bureaucracy and more communication is encouraged. and other were conceived, and garnered enough momentum to be noticed and prove their point.

Meanwhile, changed the world. Code used to be secret and proprietary, and the Open Source changed that. By making the code available to all, the movement fostered collaboration over royalties. And if I dare say this movement changed the world, it is because even companies who used to have their source hidden, are now revealing at least parts of it, namely , allowing the creation of to hook to the application and enhance it.

Rapid collaboration for an open architecture (preferably in an open environment) is the hotbed of Web 2.0. This wonderful union of methodology and ideology is leading to the creation of social software like never before, focusing on human and machine communication rather than isolation.

To better exemplify my writing, I will now give you an example of a Web 2.0 application.

  • is a software that shows the US roads and addresses. The software has an exposed to developers
  • is an open website where you can find all sorts of information sorted by city, from classifieds to cafes, and what not
  • Google Maps + Craiglist refined to flat information = . Housing Maps takes advantage of the Google Maps API and the data on craiglist to present flat information in a visual way. Housing Maps can be seen as a Web 2.0 application

There are many examples already present, and new ones rapidly created. I think the example above is clear enough to get the idea. Nevertheless, if you have comments or questions about the subject, feel free to deconstruct. Additionally, you can add Web 2.0 applications to this list. I hope this entry was informative to you and that you are better prepared on what to expect from the web.

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