‘I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has
immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create.’
Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web.

The term ‘Web 2.0’ was officially coined in 2004 by Dale Dougherty, a vice-president of O’Reilly Media. The Dot-com bubble had just burst. Companies that survived had something in common. It was brainstormed whether the common something could be web 2.0. The year 2006, Time magazine person of the year was ‘You’ and a picture of a PC in the cover of the magazine with the tag line reading
Yes You, You control the information age. Welcome to your world.

Web 2.0, the global web phenomenon is the buzz word in India now. Everyone is trying to squeeze into the band wagon and there is plenty of space to occupy all. Let’s explore why it is that all are falling for web 2.0, be it an entrepreneur to start up a company or a small time user. The rich user experience one gets on using the web 2.0 social spaces like the blogosphere or the Wikis or Del.icio.us or even Orkut is totally interactive when compared to yahoo for instance. Yahoo is a typical example of Web1.0, where very few publishers generate the content on the web for the entire set of users.
Web 2.0 is also termed as the read - write web where users can also write the content and voice their opinions. Web 2.0 utilizes the standards built and practiced by Web 1.0 users, which forms the basic platform.

The advantages of using web 2.0 from the user perspective are listed below

• The content is generated by the user. Blogs let us comment. Photo sharing social sites facilitate sharing of images. Social networking sites let us share profiles. It’s all about getting noticed and grabbing attention.
• The power of the crowd as a collective force can do wonders. Crowd sourcing is one such trend where talent from the crowd is leveraged, voted on and then used for developing applications or software. E.g. Cambrian house.

• Tagging of photos, articles, links and websites which can be retrieved later is the essence of Web 2.0. This is termed as folksonomy and Del.icio.us, the popular book marking site is based on this concept.
• Web 2.0 develops mash ups. Oft-quoted example HousingMaps.com combined Google Maps with the USA-based CraigsList of flats available for rent to give you a view of the flats on the net, which can be located on the map.
• These kinds of mash-ups are facilitated by what are known as ‘open APIs’–Application Programming Interfaces. This is because of opening up the application for use by the developer for building variety of applications using it.

The Web 2.0 technology
The technology behind web 2.0 is cloud computing. This is a system architecture which is very economical and cost effective. The server is shared amidst users and is based on the pay per use model.
Ajax which comprises of XML and asynchronous java script is the language used to get the rich web 2.0 experience. Alternatively Macromedia flash is also used in place of Ajax.

Features of Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is very user friendly. The user need not even have to be internet Savvy to use web 2.0. Web 2.0 is feature rich and very colorful. The colors predominantly used are black, red and white. There is a lot of focus on good content, than images.
Web 2.0 is a convergence of business and information technology which makes the web flexible, collaborative and open to every one. This makes Web 2.0 an attractive business avenue which holds many promises to investors who are willing to take risks.

Some of the very novel innovations of Web 2.0 applications are

•Zopa : Taking money lending to the masses
•Zimbra : Messaging and collaboration
•Toggl :Online time tracking
•World66 : A wiki on Travel
•NetworthIQ : Track your networth online
•openID : Single identity across all applications
•Foldershare : Keep your files online

There is a lot of frenzy to innovate and a lot of money to back it with. There is a gold rush to start up web 2.0 sites. People have not seen return on investments yet. It might be a beginning of a bubble that is yet to burst. That’s why Venture capitalists are averse of Web 2.0 technologies. Meanwhile the world of Web 3.0 has emerged. Watch this space for a journey into the semantic web.