Web 2.0 - Who,What,Why,Where,When

Videos in lessons are always a winner. And last weeks BBC documentary was no different. A somewhat surreal insight into the 'new' interactive technologies available on the web that we (myself and my classmates) take for granted.

Myspace, YouTube, Google, Blogger, LiveJournal Second Life, I could go on. All were looked at within the documentary, in a well argued proposal that the web is changing. Are these technologies really changing culture as we know it? One thing is for certain that these sites and services, along with others, form the backbone of second generation of web-based services with the emphasis on online collaberation and user sharing. Welcome to Web 2.0

Struggling to define how the term Web 2.0 came about, it is simple to put it as the next-generation of the web. Wikipedia (a web 2.0 service) puts it as:

"Alluding to the version-numbers that commonly designate software upgrades, the phrase 'Web 2.0' hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web; and advocates suggest that technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, Web APIs, Web standards and online Web services imply a significant change in web usage."

However, Wikipedia again explains that Web 2.0 can refer to the following:

• The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming computing platforms serving web applications to end-users

• A social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation"

• Enhanced organization and categorization of content, emphasizing deeplinking

• A rise or fall in the economic value of the Web, possibly surpassing the impact of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s

All this is well and good, and I now have a clear grasp on what Web 2.0 is, if indeed it is something. Nonetheless, the views of bloggers such as Paul Graham's are probably in minority to that of the numbers that have accepted Web 2.0. A buzz word? Hard to say.

It is certainly hard to underpin a clear defenition to what Web 2.0 actually is (just take a look at the pic above of a mind-map from a Tim O'Reilly piece). But does there have to be a defenition? And isn't that what Web 2.0 is all about. It's not about a clear distinction, branding the web and certain sites '2.0' so that they can promote themselves as next-gen. It's about the power being back with the people, and the systems and services that make that happen. Well after one-week looking at online journalism, that's what it seems like to me anyway. Talk about being in at the deep-end!