SEMINAR REPORT

WEB 2.0

2006-2010 BATCH

Semester VII

submitted by

JESSIL UMMER C A

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTESCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

VISWAJYOTHI COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY, MUVATTUPUZHA

ABSTRACT

Web 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web

design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and collaboration among users. These

concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services,

such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. The term became

notable after the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term

suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical

specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end- users utilize the Web.

Basically, the term encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and social interactions

on the Web. Tim O'Reilly regards Web 2.0 as business embracing the web as a platform and using its

strengths. The features that encompasses the essence of Web 2.0 are building applications and services

around the unique features of the Internet, as opposed to building applications and expecting the Internet

to suit as a platform. Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can

build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing

users to run software applications entirely through a browser.

While Web 2.0 technologies are difficult to define precisely, the

outline of emerging applications has become clear over the past year. We can thus

essentially view Web 2.0 as semantic Web technologies integrated into, or

powering, large-scale Web applications. The base of Web 2.0 applications resides in

the resource description framework (RDF) for providing a means to link data from

multiple Web sites or databases. With the SPARQL query language, a SQL-like

standard for querying RDF data, applications can use native graph-based RDF stores

and extract RDF data from traditional databases.

1. INTRODUCTION

Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as “ a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web

technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and collaboration

among users.” There is huge amount of disagreement among internet experts on what Web 2.0 is

and how the term is defined. Some say that Web 2.0 is a set of philosophies and practices that provide

Web users with a deep and rich experience. Others say it's a new collection of applications and

technologies that make it easier for people to find information and connect with one another online. A

few journalists maintain that the term doesn't mean anything at all, it's just a marketing ploy used to hype

social networking sites.

The Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted

services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. The term

became notable after the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. O'Reilly Media is an

American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and web sites and

produces conferences on computer technology topics. Although the term suggests a new version of the

World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the

ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web. According to Tim O'Reilly, “Web 2.0

is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform,

and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.” O'Reilly Media publisher Dale

Dougherty coined the phrase Web 2.0.

Some technology experts, notably Tim Berners-Lee, have questioned whether one can use the

term in any meaningful way, since many of the technology components of Web 2.0 have existed since

the early days of the Web.In September 2005, Tim O'Reilly posted a blog entry that defined Web 2.0.

The explanation spanned five pages of text and graphics illustrating O'Reilly's take on what the term

meant. O'Reilly's philosophy of Web 2.0 included these ideas

Using the Web as an applications platform

Democratizing the Web

Employing new methods to distribute information

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the

interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to

run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and

exercise control over that data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages

users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in contrast to very old traditional websites,

the sort which limited visitors to viewing and whose content only the site's owner could modify. Web 2.0

sites often feature a rich, user-friendly interface based on Ajax,openlaszlo, Flex or similar rich

media. The sites may also have social-networking aspects. The O'Reilly Media Web site is a prime

example of Web 2.0 at work.

The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem,

a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web" and regards the Web-as-

information-source as Web 1.0. The impossibility of excluding group-members who don’t contribute

to the provision of goods from sharing profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members

will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and free-ride on the contribution of others.

The characteristics of Web 2.0 are: rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content, metadata,

web standards, scalability, openness, freedom and collective intelligence by way of user

participation – all should be viewed as essential attributes of Web 2.0. In fact web 1.0 came into

existence after the evolution of web 2.0.

In 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. Technologies such as weblogs, wikis,

podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, and web

application programming interfaces (APIs) provide enhancements over read-only websites. The idea of

"Web 2.0" can also relate to a transition of some websites from isolated information silos to interlinked

computing platforms that function like locally-available software in the perception of the user. Web 2.0

also includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share

and re-use. This can result in a rise in the economic value of the web to businesses, as users can

perform more activities online.

2. WEB 2.0 PHILOSOPHY

2.1 Web as a Platform

In the blog entry that described his philosophy of Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly wrote that before the dot-

com bubble burst, Web companies like Netscape concentrated on providing a product. In

Netscape's case, the product was a Web browser. These products would then serve as the foundation

for a suite of applications and other products. O'Reilly's vision of a Web 2.0 company is one that

provides a service rather than a product.

The example O'Reilly used in his blog entry was Google. He said that Google's value comes from

several factors:

● It's a multi-platform service. You can access Google on a PC or Mac (using a Web browser) or on a

mobile device like a cell phone.

● It avoids the business model established by the software industry. You don't need to buy a particular

software package to use the service.

● It includes a specialized database of information -- search results -- that seamlessly works

with its search engine software. Without the database, the search application is worthless. On

the other hand, without the search application, the database is too large to navigate.

Another important part of using the Web as a platform is designing what O'Reilly calls rich user

experiences. These are applications and applets, the small programs that fit within a larger program

or Web page, to make Web surfing and accessing the Internet more enjoyable. For example, the

service Twitter provides is based off of a very simple concept, members can send a message to an entire

network of friends using a simple interface. But Twitter also allows third-party developers to access part

of the Twitter application programming interface(API). This access allows them to make new

applications based off the basic features of Twitter. For example, Twitterific is a program for the Mac

designed by a third-party developer called the Iconfactory. It integrates the Twitter service into a desktop

application for users. While Twitter didn't develop Twitterific, it did give the Iconfactory the information

it needed to create the application.

Other sites follow a similar philosophy. In 2007, the social networking site Facebook gave third-party

developers access to its API. Before long, hundreds of new applications appeared, using Facebook as a

platform. Facebook members can choose from dozens of applications to enhance their browsing

experiences.

2.2 Democratization of Web

Web democratization refers to the way people access and contribute to the Internet. Many early Web

pages were static, with no way for users to add to or interact with the information. In some ways, many

companies thought of the Internet as an extension of television -- browsers would look passively at

whatever content the Web provided. Other companies had different ideas, though. For example, Amazon

allowed visitors to create accounts and submit book reviews. Anyone could play the role of a literary

critic. Before long, other customers were using these reviews to help them

decide what books to buy. Amazon's members were helping to shape the browsing experience.

The Web 2.0 philosophy emphasizes the importance of people's interactions with the Internet.

Everyone has an opportunity to contribute to the Web. And, by paying attention to what users are looking

for and doing online, a company can provide better service and build customer loyalty. Some Web

pages absolutely depend upon user contributions -- without them, there'd be no Web site. Wikis are a

good example of this. Users can enter information, modify existing data or even delete entire sections in

wikis. Ultimately, the people who visit the Web site determine what it contains and how it looks.

The Amazon Web site represents some Web 2.0 concepts in features like its customer book reviews. Tim

O'Reilly wrote about the importance of harnessing collective intelligence. He stated that the

Web sites that are shaped by user contributions will evolve into more superior destinations than other

sites. He cited Wikipedia as the perfect example. O'Reilly felt that the community of informed users

could monitor and maintain the site. However, since anyone can contribute information to Wikipedia, a

person could submit incorrect information either by accident or on purpose. There's no way to

guarantee the accuracy of the information, and you can't hold anyone responsible for

submitting incorrect information.

Another element of Web democratization is the tag. Web tags are labels that allow users to associate

information with particular topics. Many sites allow users to apply tags to information ranging from

uploaded images to blog entries. Tags become important when people use search engines. Users can

tag their information with search terms, and when another user enters a search term that matches the tag,

that information will be listed as a search result. Tagging data makes searching for information faster

and more efficient. User-contributed tags are a part of folksonomy, a classification system on the Web.

The last piece of the democratization puzzle is open source software. An open source program is one in

which the programmer allows anyone to look at the code he or she used to create the application. And

you can do more than just look.

Some may allow you to modify the code to make it more efficient or even to create a new program using

the original code as a foundation. Ideally, an open source program will receive the best quality assurance

testing available because anyone can examine and test it.

2.3. Distributing Information.

Before the dot-com crash, many Web pages featured pictures and text that the Web page administrators

rarely updated. As Web editing software became more user-friendly, it became easier to make

changes more often. Some companies continued to present information in a static, non-interactive

way, but a few began to experiment with new ways of distributing information. One new way was to

use Web syndication formats like Really Simple Syndication (RSS). With RSS, users could

subscribe to a Web page and receive updates whenever the administrator for that page made

any changes. Some programmers designed applications that created RSS readers on PC or Mac

desktops, which meant users could check on updates for their favorite Web sites without even opening a

Web browser.

Technorati is a Web site that tracks and catalogs blogs. Another way of sharing information on the

Web came as a surprise to many people: blogs. While people have created personal Web pages since

the early days of the Web, the blog format is very different from the traditional personal Web page. For

one thing, most blogs are organized chronologically, so it's possible for a reader to see the most recent

entry, then go back into archives and follow the blog's progression from start to finish. Blogs are a good

way to get information out to readers fast. People read blogs, see things that interest them and write about

it in their own blogs. Information begins to spread from one blogger to another. Marketing firms call this

blog-to-blog method of transmitting information viral marketing. Many companies are looking into ways

to use viral marketing to their advantage -- it's both powerful advertising and inexpensive because the

targeted audience does most of the work for you. Web pages like blogs rely on the use of

permalinks. Permalinks are hypertext links that connect to a specific blog entry. Without permalinks,

discussing blog entries would become a tedious process. All links would lead the user to the main blog

page, which may have been updated since the link was first created. Permalinks allow users to anchor a

pathway to a specific blog entry. If you see a particularly fascinating discussion on a blog, you can use

a permalink to guide your friends there to read up on the subject.

Another key concept to Web 2.0 is the incorporation of non-computer devices into the Internet.

Many cell phones and PDAs now have some level of Internet connectivity, and Apple's iTunes

application integrates smoothly with iPods. O'Reilly cites the expansion of Internet services beyond

computers as another example of how the Web is evolving.

OVERVIEW

The Web is entering a new phase of evolution. There has been much debate recently about

what to call this new phase. Some would prefer to not name it all, while others suggest

continuing to call it "Web 2.0". However, this new phase of evolution has quite a different

focus from what Web 2.0 has come to mean.

 

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3. WEB 1.0

3.1 Definition

Web 1.0 is a retronym which refers to the state of the World Wide Web, and website design style before

the Web 2.0 phenomenon, and included most websites in the period between 1994 and 2004. For the most

part websites were a strictly one-way published media, similar to the Gopher protocol that came before it.

Personal web pages were common in Web 1.0, consisting of mainly static pages hosted on free

hosting services such as Geocities, nowadays dynamically generated blogs and social networking

profiles are more popular, often keeping real-time statistics and allowing for readers to comment on posts.

At the Technet Summit in November 2006, Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix, stated a

simple formula for defining the phases of the Web, “ Web 1.0 was dial-up, 50K average bandwidth, Web

2.0 is an average 1 megabit of bandwidth and Web 3.0 will be 10 megabits of bandwidth all the time,

which will be the full video Web, and that will feel like Web 3.0. ” Typical design elements of a Web

1.0 site included:

Static pages instead of dynamically generated content.

The use of framesets.

Proprietary HTML extensions such as the <blink> and <marquee> tags introduced

during the first browser war.

Online guestbooks.

GIF buttons, typically 88x31 pixels promoting web browsers and other products.

HTML forms sent via email. A user would fill in a form, and upon clicking submit their email

client would attempt to send an email containing the form's details

When Dale Dougherty of O'Reilly Media coined the term "Web 2.0," he probably didn't know he was

stirring up a hornets' nest. Defining Web 2.0 was only half of the problem. The other half had to do

with the use of "2.0." The number suggested that this was a new version of the World Wide Web. If

Web 2.0 was real, what was Web 1.0? Were there still Web pages on the Internet that fell into the Web

1.0 classification? If you search the Web, you'll find no shortage of answers to these questions.

Unfortunately, there's no agreement on the answers. We can understand what Web 1.0 is only if we

assume that there's a Web 2.0. We will have to use O'Reilly's definition of Web 2.0 to figure out what

Web 1.0 means.

It's hard to define Web 1.0 for several reasons. First, Web 2.0 doesn't refer to a specific advance in Web

technology. Instead, Web 2.0 refers to a set of techniques for Web page design and execution. Second,

some of these techniques have been around since the World Wide Web first launched, so it's impossible

to separate Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 in a time line. The definition of Web 1.0 completely depends upon the

definition of Web 2.0.

With that in mind, if Web 2.0 is a collection of approaches that are the most effective on the World

Wide Web, then Web 1.0 includes everything else. As for what it means to be "effective," Tim O'Reilly

says that it's providing users with an engaging experience so that they'll want to return to the Web page

in the future.

Here's a collection of strategies O'Reilly considers to be part of the Web 1.0 philosophy:

● Web 1.0 sites are static. They contain information that might be useful, but there's no reason for a

visitor to return to the site later. An example might be a personal Web page that gives information

about the site's owner, but never changes. A Web 2.0 version might be a blog or MySpace account that

owners can frequently update.

● Web 1.0 sites aren't interactive. Visitors can only visit these sites; they can't impact or contribute to

the sites. Most organizations have profile pages that visitors can look at but not impact or alter, whereas

a wiki allows anyone to visit and make changes.

● Web 1.0 applications are proprietary. Under the Web 1.0 philosophy, companies develop

software applications that users can download, but they can't see how the application works or change

it. A Web 2.0 application is an open source program, which means the source code for the program is

freely available. Users can see how the application works and make modifications or even build new

applications based on earlier programs. For example, Netscape Navigator was a proprietary Web browser

of the Web 1.0 era. Firefox follows the Web 2.0 philosophy and provides developers with all the tools

they need to create new Firefox applications.

3.2 Classification

If Web 2.0 is a collection of the most effective ways to create and use Web pages, is there any reason to

make a page that follows the Web 1.0 model? It may sound surprising, but the answer is actually yes.

There are times when a Web 1.0 approach is appropriate. Part of the Web 2.0 philosophy is creating a

Web page that visitors can impact or change. For example, the Amazon Web site allows visitors to post

product reviews. Future visitors will have a chance to read these reviews, which might

influence their decision to buy the product. The ability to contribute information is helpful. But in

some cases, the webmaster wouldn't want users to be able to impact the Web page. A restaurant might

have a Web page that shows the current menu. While the menu might evolve over time, the webmaster

wouldn't want visitors to be able to make changes. The menu's purpose is to let people know what the

restaurant serves; it's not the right place for commentary or reviews.

An example of a good Web 1.0 approach is information resources. Wikipedia is an online

encyclopedia resource that allows visitors to make changes to most articles. Ideally, with enough people

contributing to Wikipedia entries, the most accurate and relevant information about every subject will

eventually be part of each article. Unfortunately, because anyone can change entries, it's possible for

someone to post false or misleading information. People can purposefully or unwittingly damage an

article's credibility by adding inaccurate facts. While moderators do patrol the pages for these acts

of vandalism, there's no guarantee that the information on an entry will be accurate on any given day.

Wikipedia is an example of a website with Web 2.0 approach. On the flip side of the coin are official

encyclopedias. Encyclopedia entries are fact-checked, edited and attributed to a specific author or entity.

The process of creating an encyclopedia article is very structured. Perhaps most importantly, there is a

stress on objectivity. The author of an encyclopedia entry must present facts without being subjective; a

person making an edit to a Wikipedia article could have a personal agenda and as a result hide certain

facts or publish false information. While Wikipedia can be a good starting place to find information about

most subjects, it's almost always a bad idea to use it as your sole source of information.

World Book Encyclopedia's Web page is an example of a Web 1.0 information resource.The

boundary between what counts as Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 isn't always clear. Some Web sites are very static

but include a section for visitor comments. The site as a whole might follow the Web 1.0 approach, but

the comments section is a Web 2.0 technique. Even Web experts disagree on how to classify Web pages,

and some think that it's a mistake to even try labeling them at all. There's no denying that some Web

strategies are more effective than others. In the end, whether or not there's such a thing as Web 1.0 is

a moot point. The important thing is to learn how to use the Web to its full potential.

4. WEB 3.0

4.1. Basics

Internet experts think Web 3.0 is going to be like having a personal assistant who knows

practically everything about you and can access all the information on the Internet to answer

any question. Many compare Web 3.0 to a giant database. While Web 2.0 uses the Internet to make

connections between people, Web 3.0 will use the Internet to make connections with information. Some

experts see Web 3.0 replacing the current Web while others believe it will exist as a separate network.

It's easier to get the concept with an example. Let's say that you're thinking about going on a vacation.

You want to go someplace warm and tropical. You have set aside a budget of $3,000 for your trip. You

want a nice place to stay, but you don't want it to take up too much of your budget. You also want a good

deal on a flight. With the Web technology currently available to you, you'd have to do a lot of research to

find the best vacation options. You'd need to research potential destinations and decide which one is

right for you. You might visit two or three discount travel sites and compare rates for flights and hotel

rooms. You'd spend a lot of your time looking through results on various search engine results pages. The

entire process could take several hours. If your Web 3.0 browser retrieves information for you based on

your likes and dislikes, could other people learn things about you that you'd rather keep private by

looking at your results? What if someone performs an Internet search on you? Will your activities on

the Internet become public knowledge? Some people worry that by the time we have answers to

these questions, it'll be too late to do anything about it.

According to some Internet experts, with Web 3.0 you'll be able to sit back and let the Internet do all the

work for you. You could use a search service and narrow the parameters of your search. The

browser program then gathers, analyzes and presents the data to you in a way that makes

comparison a snap. It can do this because Web 3.0 will be able to understand information on the

Web.Right now, when you use a Web search engine, the engine isn't able to really understand your

search. It looks for Web pages that contain the keywords found in your search terms. The search engine

can't tell if the Web page is actually relevant for your search. It can only tell that the keyword

appears on the Web page. For example, if you searched for the term "Saturn," you'd end up with

results for Web pages about the planet and others about the car manufacturer.

A Web 3.0 search engine could find not only the keywords in your search, but also interpret the context

of your request. It would return relevant results and suggest other content related to your search

terms. In our vacation example, if you typed "tropical vacation destinations under $3,000" as a search

request, the Web 3.0 browser might include a list of fun activities or great restaurants related to the search

results. It would treat the entire Internet as a massive database of information available for any query.

4.2. Approach

In the case of Web 3.0, most Internet experts agree about its general traits. They believe that Web 3.0

will provide users with richer and more relevant experiences. Many also believe that with Web

3.0, every user will have a unique Internet profile based on that user's browsing history. Web 3.0 will

use this profile to tailor the browsing experience to each individual. That means that if two

different people each performed an Internet search with the same keywords using the same service,

they'd receive different results determined by their individual profiles.The technologies and software

required for this kind of application aren't yet mature. Services like TiVO and Pandora provide

individualized content based on user input, but they both rely on a trial-and-error approach that isn't

as efficient as what the experts say Web 3.0 will be. More importantly, both TiVO and Pandora have a

limited scope -- television shows and music, respectively -- whereas Web 3.0 will involve all the

information on the Internet.

Some experts believe that the foundation for Web 3.0 will be application programming interfaces (APIs).

An API is an interface designed to allow developers to create applications that take advantage of a certain

set of resources. Many Web 2.0 sites include APIs that give programmers access to the sites'

unique data and capabilities. For example, Facebook's API allows developers to create programs that

use Facebook as a staging ground for games, quizzes, product reviews and more.

Web 3.0 will likely plug into your individual tastes and browsing habits. One Web 2.0 trend that could

help the development of Web 3.0 is the mashup. A mashup is the combination of two or more

applications into a single application. For example, a developer might combine a program that lets

users review restaurants with Google Maps. The new mashup application could show not only

restaurant reviews, but also map them out so that the user could see the restaurants' locations. Some

Internet experts believe that creating mashups will be so easy in Web 3.0 that anyone will be able to do

it.Widgets are small applications that people can insert into Web pages by copying and embedding lines

of code into a Web page's code. They can be games, news feeds, video players or just about anything

else. Some Internet prognosticators believe that Web 3.0 will let users combine widgets together to make

mashups by just clicking and dragging a couple of icons into a box on a Web page. Want an application

that shows you where news stories are happening? Combine a news feed icon with a Google Earth icon

and Web 3.0 does the rest. How? Well, no one has quite figured that part out yet.

Other experts think that Web 3.0 will start fresh. Instead of using HTML as the basic coding language, it

will rely on some new and unnamed language. These experts suggest it might be easier to start from

scratch rather than try to change the current Web. However, this version of Web 3.0 is so theoretical

that it's practically impossible to say how it will work.

Tim Berners Lee, the man responsible for the World Wide Web has his own theory of what the future of

the Web will be. He calls it the Semantic Web, and many Internet experts borrow heavily from his work

when talking about Web 3.0. 4.3 Semantic Web

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He created it as an interface for the Internet

and a way for people to share information with one another. Berners-Lee disputes the existence of

Web 2.0, calling it nothing more than meaningless jargon. Berners-Lee maintains that he intended the

World Wide Web to do all the things that Web 2.0 is supposed to do. Berners-Lee's vision of the future

Web is similar to the concept of Web 3.0. It's called the Semantic Web. Right now, the Web's

structure is geared for humans. It's easy for us to visit a Web page and understand what it's

all about.

Computers can't do that. A search engine might be able to scan for keywords, but it can't understand how

those keywords are used in the context of the page. With the Semantic Web, computers will scan and

interpret information on Web pages using software agents. These software agents will be programs that

crawl through the Web, searching for relevant information. They'll be able to do that because the

Semantic Web will have collections of information called ontologies. In terms of the Internet, an ontology

is a file that defines the relationships among a group of terms. For example, the term "cousin" refers to the

familial relationship between two people who share one set of grandparents. A Semantic Web

ontology might define each familial role like this:

1. Grandparent: A direct ancestor two generations removed from the subject

2. Parent: A direct ancestor one generation removed from the subject

3. Brother or sister: Someone who shares the same parent as the subject

4. Nephew or niece: Child of the brother or sister of the subject

5. Aunt or uncle: Sister or brother to a parent of the subject

6. Cousin: child of an aunt or uncle of the subject

For the Semantic Web to be effective, ontologies have to be detailed and comprehensive. In Berners-

Lee's concept, they would exist in the form of metadata. Metadata is information included in the

code for Web pages that is invisible to humans, but readable by computers.

Constructing ontologies takes a lot of work. In fact, that's one of the big obstacles the Semantic Web

faces. Will people be willing to put in the effort required to make comprehensive ontologies for their Web

sites? Will they maintain them as the Web sites change? Critics suggest that the task of creating

and maintaining such complex files is too much work for most people.

On the other hand, some people really enjoy labeling or tagging Web objects and information.

Web tags categorize the tagged object or information. Several blogs include a tag option, making it

easy to classify journal entries under specific topics. Photo sharing sites like Flickr allow users to tag

pictures. Google even has turned it into a game: Google Image Labeler pits two people against each other

in a labeling contest. Each player tries to create the largest number of relevant tags for a series of images.

According to some experts, Web 3.0 will be able to search tags and labels and return the most relevant

results back to the user. Perhaps Web 3.0 will combine Berners-Lee's concept of the Semantic Web with

Web 2.0's tagging culture. Even though Web 3.0 is more theory than reality, that hasn't stopped

people from guessing what will come next.

5. CRITICISM

The term Web 2.0 has inspired a lot of discussion. Some disagree on exactly what the term

means, and others argue that it doesn't mean anything at all. Here are some summaries of the main

arguments:

● Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, dismissed the Web 2.0 concept. He called Web

2.0 "a piece of jargon" and said "nobody even knows what it means" in an IBM developerWorks

interview. Berners-Lee said the World Wide Web was always a way for people to connect with one

another and that there was nothing new or revolutionary about the Web 2.0 philosophy.

● Russell Shaw, a telecommunications author, posted a blog entry in 2005 in which he said that the

term was nothing more than a marketing slogan. He wrote that while the individual elements of Web

2.0 actually do exist, they can't be grouped together under a single term or concept. Shaw claimed that

the concepts in Web 2.0 were too broad, and that many of its goals conflicted with each other.

● Jay Fienberg, an information architecture specialist, called Web 2.0 a "retrospective

concept." He said that only a year after O'Reilly introduced the term, it had become a marketing

gimmick. Fienberg pointed out that many popular technology businesses adopted the term to

make their companies sound innovative. This in turn watered down any meaning the original name

may have had.

● Internet essayist Paul Graham originally dismissed Web 2.0 as a buzz word but later recanted after

O'Reilly published his take on what Web 2.0 means. Even then, Graham said the term originally had

no meaning but became more defined as people looked deeper into the current state of the

Web. His perspective is that Web 2.0 refers to the best way to use the World Wide Web, through real

connections between users and higher levels of interactivity.

There are hundreds of other blog entries that focus on Web 2.0, what it means and whether it's really a

step forward in the evolution of the Internet. It's too early to say if the term will have staying power or if it

will fade away as just another marketing slogan. Some people feel that Web 2.0 has so many

meanings that it's been reduced to a buzz word. A few Web 2.0 experts have shied away from the term

and use phrases like social networking and Web democratization instead.

7. CONCLUSION

Although there has been widespread debate on whether actually a Web 2.0 exists or not, Web 2.0 has

been one of the most talked about and discussed topics in recent times. There is no denying the fact

that there is a definite visible change of trends while using the world wide web. Even criticizers of Web

2.0 do not deny this fact.

Web 2.0 can be said as a term which had little or no meaning at the time it was defined but as a

result of constant debate and discussion has lead to have meanings and applications of

numerous dimensions. In brief, the characteristics of Web 2.0 include:

● The ability for visitors to make changes to Web pages.

● Using Web pages to link people to other users.

● Fast and efficient ways to share content.

● New ways to get information.

● Expanding access to the Internet beyond the computer.

REFERENCES

● Graham, Paul. "Web 2.0." PaulGraham.com. November, 2005.

http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html

● O'Reilly, Tim. "What is Web 2.0."

O'Reilly Media. September 30, 2005.

http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim

/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

● Wikipedia.com, “Web 2.0.”, “Web 1.0”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_1.0

● HowStuffsWork.com, “How Web 2.0 works".

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-20.htML

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