Web 2.0 Seminar Report

SEMINAR REPORT WEB 2.0 2006-2010 BATCH Semester VII

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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-asinformation-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 dotcom

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 guarantee

the

accuracy

of

the

information,

and

you

can't

hold

to

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, changes more

often.

Some

it

became

easier

to make

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 blogto-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

http://novaspivack.typepad.com/RadarNetworksTowardsAWebOS.jpg

3. WEB 1.0 3.1 Definition

mean.

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 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 browser

program then

gathers,

analyzes

parameters

of

your

search. The

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 BernersLee'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

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

2.0

a "retrospective

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 result

of

constant

debate

and

discussion

has

lead

to

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

but

as a

have meanings and applications of

/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 •

WWW.IEEE.ORG

•

www.spectrum.ieee.org