Introduction
Many say that the real birth of the internet was on January 1, 1983 in the U. S. when the National Science Foundation created the NSFNet, a university backbone which later on opened up to commercial parties.
The web went through an evolution and the World Wide Web was started by Tim Berners-Lee who proposed a project based on HTML to help researchers share and update information and on August 6, 1991 put the first website live.
The Web evolved fast mainly due to the fact that the connection speeds increased.
Later on plug-ins (like Flash) and add-on programs became a solution to the limited functionality of the browsers. Furthermore, program enhancements were made to the HTML code with the help of Javascript which made the design of interactive sites with dynamic content possible.
Web 2.0 in the Past
Terry Burrows says in his book “Blogs, Wikis, MySpace, and More” that the idea of Web 2.0 begins with the bursting of the dot-com bubble after the collapse (considered the turning point for the web) of NASDAQ exchange in March 2000 and that the concept of Web 2.0 appeared during a conference brainstorming session where they came up with some examples of the differences between the old web and the new.
It is important to clarify that Web 2.0 is not an update of web 1.0 but a different way of using the platform.
Wikipedia defines Webb 2.0 as follows: “The term "Web 2.0" (2004–present) is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them”.
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) also played an important part in the development of Web 2.0 applications. Terry Burrows defines AJAX as “a development technology for creating interactive web applications”…”it works by making web pages seem more responsive by exchanging small amounts of background data with the server. Therefore the full web page doesn’t have to be reloaded each time, thus increasing interactivity, speed, and usability”. Some examples of knowledge-based, user-enriched websites are: “7 Tips On” (http://www.7tipson.com/ ), “Answers.com” (http://answers.com/), “MetaGlossary”
( http://www.metaglossary.com/ ), “ObjectGraph” (http://www.objectgraph.com/ ), etc.
Nowadays we have better technologies and it’s faster to connect to the net from home and when one is travelling (with 3G and soon 4G as Telia is already promoting on their website, etc.). If the connection we have wasn’t so fast we wouldn’t have the time to blog, use podcasts, subscribe to RSS, check Wikipedia, WI-FI laptops, write to our friends at Facebook, use i-Phones (a combination of a phone, computer, camera and mp3 player all in one), etc. We don’t have the limitations we had before. Distance courses are becoming more popular and web design is developing. Before we made web pages with html and now it’s all about usability, user-friendly web sites available to handicapped people as well, XHTML, CSS, AJAX, information architecture, and so on. The focus is on navigation and how to handle the enormous amount of information.
I think that Web 2.0 offers not only the possibility of keeping in touch with friends through MySpace, Facebook, and other social networks but also a way of teaching and/or learning subjects through Twitter (a micro blogging tool where you can write maximum 140 characters per tweet) for example. Besides this, social networks are a part of the everyday life even at different workplaces.
Web 2.0 - Today
More and more companies are hiring personnel who know about social networking in order to use their skills and help in the marketing of their products and as a way of having a better communication with their customers, for example by adding a blog in the company’s website or small clickable icons that take the visitor to Facebook and other important websites where the company has also information about the products, or offers the visitor the possibility of telling his/her friends about the company through social networks by just clicking on the small icons representative of the most important social networks. Furthermore, it’s also important for the companies to know about the traffic coming into the website and which pages they are visiting most. The company “Studiekanalen.se” shows at the bottom of the page a number of small clickable icons that take you to several social networks in order to promote the information the company is offering. A better picture can be seen at their website: http://www.studiekanalen.se/
A blog (originally called weblog) is an online web diary or journal that also gives comments on different subjects. It can have text, images, and links. There are also educator blogs like the one the first educator blogger Will Richardson has since several years at the following web address: http://www.weblogg-ed.com/. This weblog is about how to implement weblog technologies on the K-12 level of education.
Blogs have evolved through time. There are many blogging sites like:
Blogger ( http://www.blogger.com/ ), bloggportalen ( http://www.bloggportalen.se/ ), WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com/ ), etc. The magazine ”Allt om PC” published ”Blogg Guiden” which gives people advice and guidelines on how to start and design a blog and get visitors to it.
The use of company blogs is another way of using Web 2.0. The company Dell.com has an interesting website with blogs that are classified by language.
Their website is: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/
Furthermore, companies like Retrevo have made interesting findings on how people are becoming more interested in social media. The statistics they made showed that 48% of the consumers are checking their facebook at least once a day or checking this or other social media in the middle of the night. Here are the statistics and findings made by Retrevo in their article on the internet called “Is Social Media the New Addiction”? :
http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2010/3486/is-social-media-the-new-addiction
Another way of using social networks is by using Facebook like in the example of “Stockholms Universitet”. This can be seen at the following website: http://www.facebook.com/stockholmsuniversitet
Even Universities are including social networks in their web programming courses and other courses as well. Here are some examples:
“Programmering för Web 2.0” (Universitetet I Växjö):
http://lnu.se/utbildning/kurser/2DV012
“Web, begrepp, teknik & Innovation” (Umeå Universitet): http://www.umu.se/utbildning/program-kurser/kurs/?code=2IN058
MySpace is more important than what we think since it is used as a personal card (visitkort) when for example freelance musicians look for gigs at hotels like Mornington Hotel. I had a personal experience when I visited the place with my pianist looking for the possibility of performing there. They asked us for our MySpace address which means that MySpace is not only used as a hobby but also as a way to promote oneself as a musician.
Wikipedia is based on wikis which are collaborative web space where anyone can edit or add content.
Teachers are using wikis to create their own sites like for example in the University of Umeå in the course “Spanska A1” which is a distance course.
A popular website is: http://www.wikispaces.com/ where educators can get wikis and use it in their classrooms.
Real Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way to subscribe to “feeds” of the content on a web site.
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/ ) is a popular video sharing website where users upload video clips and which is used more and more as a way to teach subjects like Photoshop, 3D Google SketchUp, etc.
Podcasts are audio or video files that are distributed to subscribed users and that can be compared to an internet radio or TV show for example iTunes offers this possibility.
The following website offers a list of links and comments made by users on games made with AJAX and similar technologies. http://www.ajaxgames.blogspot.com/
Web 2.0 in the Future
Considering that TeliaSonera launched the world’s first 4G-net (4th generation of cellular wireless standards) in Stockholm on the 14th of December 2009 and that 4G is ten times faster than 3G I think that this will also have a great impact on Web 2.0 and the Social Media.
To start with we will be able to use more applications like Web TV at the same time.
Some websites like Digital Inspiration say that “the Web 3.0 will be about the Semantic Web, personalization (iGoogle), Intelligent Search, and Behavioral Advertising” (http://www.labnol.org/internet/web-3-concepts-explained/8908/ ).
The website “How Stuff Works” has an interesting article called “How Web 3.0 Will Work” by Jonathan Strickland ( http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-30.htm ). The article also shows an example of the tiny head-mounted displays which will be used in the future to see the web and gives information about what comes after Web 3.0.
