WEB 2 SITESWeb 2 sites is the name given to the surge in social networking and social bookmarking websites, as opposed to the traditional type of website. What distinguishes a web 2 site, sometimes called web2 or web 2 0, is that they are membership sites, free to join, and can be used to disseminate information to every other member. |
Britannica Online is regarded as a typical web1 site, while Wikipedia a web 2 site: one is interactive and the other not, so interactivity definitely appears to be a feature of social sites. In analyzing a large number of web 2.0 sites, as they are correctly referred to, I have identified a number of common features that, for it to claim to be web 2.0, a service, site or company should contain. These are:
- There is a degree of interactivity, where users can contribute to the online experience and offer up data and information available to users.
- Users can interconnect between each other, with control over the degree of interconnectivity permitted by others.
- The data and information provided gets better and richer the more people use the site.
- The platform is in the form of a service provided to users, and not packaged software that has to be installed on individual hardware devices.
However, what is becoming apparent is that while users have a basic understanding of what a web2 site is, the professionals and geeks appear to have a different understanding. One based upon a definition decided at a conference in 2005. I am not going to dwell on that, since to most of us Web 2 is Friendster, YouTube and MySpace.
Each has its own particular uses, and if you want to find any interesting new news articles you automatically go to Reddit, or to Digg if you are looking for what’s new in technology. If you want to send a quick message to a friend or relative, go to Facebook and you click to del.icio.us if you have come across a great web page you want to bookmark for later use, or StumbleUpon to share it with others.
YouTube for videos, Flickr for photographs. They all have their specific uses, and they are all Web 2 sites. Another thing that tends to distinguish most of them from normal web 2 websites, is that they are categorized by what has been loosely referred to as folksonomy, as opposed to the more rigid classifications of taxonomy.
In folksonomy, web pages are categorized by tag clouds, or ‘keywords’ relevant to the content involved. One page could be classified under a number of tags, whereas a web 1 site would be classified under a category or a single keyword.
Our links to pages related to web 2 sites are displayed to the left, where you will specific information, rather the general details that the text links will provide you with.
