Calgary Web Designer Jenn Armour | Info Architecture + User Centric Web Design + Online Marketing + Social Media + Ideas

Web 2.0

// June 16th, 2006 // Ramblings

The buzz phrase Web 2.0 always seemed a little elusive. i can’t quite seem to put my finger on what it means. Is it applications such as AJAX or is it community? As a result of my apparent confusion i set out to research how others define it.

O’reilly defines it as

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.” 

The “Official” Web 2.0 Compact Definition is

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.” 

Barb Dybwad considers that

” the most interesting aspects of Web 2.0 are new tools that explore the continuum between the personal and the social, and tools that are endowed with a certain flexibility and modularity which enables collaborative remixability” 

Possibly the greatest commentary to-date on this is from Paul Graham He says that

Web 2.0 means using the web the way it’s meant to be used.