Ang.Crilley

Web 2.0 is the new generation of web 1.0 put simply, or the new generation of ‘web masters’. It enables more user friendly services and content, as well as more interactivity between not only creators/publishers and users, but amongst the users themselves. The internet now isn’t just the internet, it’s an experience which we get involved in. The net is now not only created by web designers and IT professionals, but to the general public as well, sites such as facebook and myspace enabling everyone to create their own website with multiple gadgets of web 2.0.

It seems that the net didn’t have a choice to upgrade really. The world is rapidly getting used to controlling their own technology and for everything to be interactive, for example game consoles like playstation or wii, and not only being able to choose from hundreds of television stations but the ability to do things like VOTE or POLL through your television!! Even the transition from VHS to DVD, before we just put the tape in and it played. Now, we pop a disk in and can play the movie, select scenes, watch trailers, see bloopers, watch ‘the making of’ – the list goes on. If the internet didn’t adopt this ‘user involved’ theme that is being applied globally, it would have been left behind.

Web 2.0 runs off user participation and generated content – that such as comments, tagging, ratings, forums – and the whole reason this works so well is because of the massive user base. The more people using a service the better it becomes, creating the ‘network effect’.

These are just a few video’s on Youtube I found that explain in a brief way what web 2.0 is, one more technical and the second is a more basic interpretation.

Mashup of all the currently leading industries in Web 2.0, which is what web 2.0 is all about – creating a rich user experience – and I personally enjoy looking at this picture.

This evolution of Web 2.0 has also resulting in new trends, such as ‘the long tail’, first coined by Chris Anderson in 2004, who compares it to Amazon.com – as done in the lecture also. The long tail basically is a term which reflects the way in which Web 2.0 has so much more diversity and choice in smaller, more specific categories.

As the picture above demonstrates, the specific end of the spectrum is known as the long tail. For example, Amazon.com offers a vast range of specific or alternative books, which are sold in small amounts. This virtual world of infinate books is far outselling that of physical bookstores, that ultimately run off the sales off a small range of books selling in large quantities. This is the ‘long tail’ effect.