Web 2.0 is a new kind of internet that allows the user to pick and choose, organize, and arrange a web page in the way that he or she likes. Web 2.0 allows users to interact with the website instead of simply reading it as in web 1.0. For example, www.flickr.com is an example of a Web 2.0 webpage. It allows users to become a member and upload photos, look at other people’s photos, and print photos. www.youtube.com is another common site that uses Web 2.0 technologies to allow it’s users to upload videos. But Web 2.0 is not just limited to visual media uploads like pictures and videos; it also allows users to change the page layout and sometimes content as well. Blogs, such as the one we are using, are internet pages where people can add text to a page to express their ideas and thoughts to other people on the web. Blogs allow users to change the words on the page much like a wiki. A wiki is an internet site that multiple people can change and edit. Wiki’s can be useful to plan events such as conferences, birthday parties, and family vacations. With blogs and wikis, you can edit the text, but you still can’t edit the webpage. Technologies that allow you to move pieces of the webpage around and create a look that is pleasing to the user are also classified in the scheme of Web 2.0. This technology is used on website like www.facebook.com and www.myspace.com. These 2 sites in particular are great examples of multiple Web 2.0 technologies in use. They not only allow users to change and arrange the page layout, but they also allow users to upload pictures, videos, songs, and change the text on specific pages.
AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. According to www.wikipedia.com AJAX is “a group of interrelated web development techniques used for creating interactive web applications or rich Internet applications.” AJAX allows web programs to run “in the background” so that they are not noticed by the users of the web page. As is the case for most websites, AJAX will allow the entire site to run faster. Instead of loading an entire page each time a new page is visited, AJAX will keep the information that both pages have in common loaded and only load the new information, thus creating a faster load times for web pages.
With faster page loads (and much more) from AJAX; combined with all the user-defined technologies of Web 2.0, the internet is starting to experience a rebirthing of sorts. Where as Web 1.0 was designed as a concrete thing, Web 2.0 is more flexible and dynamic. In the future we can only hope to see more of these new technologies in use and maybe a web 3.0 emerge.
Tags: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsa5ZTRJQ5w, www.facebook.com, www.flickr.com, www.google.com/adsense, www.google.com/chrome, www.skipe.com, www.wikipedia.com, www.wordpress.com, www.youtube.com
