What is Web 2.0

For Wednesday’s class, we had to read the chapter called “What is Web 2.0” by Tim O’Reilly. There are different meanings to the term “Web 2.0” and in this chapter he attempts to clarify exactly what it means. According to the chapter, “Web 2.0” is a more advanced version of “Web 1.0”, but there are certain characteristics that make them different. One of the most important aspects that I believe O’Reilly talks about is how people need to remember that the internet is not a product, it is a service. With that in mind, it’s important to make the services cost efficient so people are interested and not turned away. It is also to important to be able to trust the people that are using the services, because people add value (O’ Reilly). Another important characteristic of “Web 2.0” is that it has to understand how important long tailing is. According to the text, “the long tail is the collective power of the small sites that make up the bulk of the web’s content” (O’Reilly pg 6). By understanding this concept, companies like Google and Overture were able to place friendly ad’s on any web page, which opened up their market (O’ Reilly). He later goes on to talk about iTunes and TiVo which are very popular now days. TiVo and iTunes are the first applications that are able to bring together web content to portable devices. They also show collective intelligence, which in this case is the collaboration of different media (O’ Reilly) To me, “Web 2.0” is still confusing. I use Google, iTunes, and Wikipedia all the time, but never thought of what category they fit into.

As I sit here and write this blog, I am listening to iTunes and also looking up lyrics to my favorite song on Google without even taking into account all the hard work that goes behind it. O' Reilly helped me realize how competitive the web is and how "being a platform will beat an application every time" (O'Reilly pg 7) Microsoft is an excellent example of this, taking over Windows with Excel, Word, and Internet Explorer (O’ Reilly). The main point in O’ Reilly’s chapter is that if the application does not become a platform and follow the core competencies, it doesn’t look like it’s going to last in “Web 2.0” very long.

O’Reilly, Tim (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved August 21, 2008 from http://oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.