Why do they keep talking about Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the latest version of the internet, if you will. It is the second generation that has changed its focus. It’s the change from Netscape to Google as the main browser and now from MySpace to Facebook. It is the development of the internet from a purely broadcasting to the mass media to targeting the individual user and their needs. A web 2.0 user doesn’t want to be grouped into a category but rather want the freedom to choose what they want to see.

One might try to understand it like this. When you want to catch fish you want to cast a big net to catch as many fish as possible. This is Web 1.0, the foundations. But Web 2.0 has a different approach to fishing. It still wants to catch a lot of fish, but instead of casting a big net it uses a small net in different areas. It uses different bait. It wants to catch ‘the fish’. Web 2.0 is like a fisherman who has the power to customise the type of bait, the type of rod and the time of day to catch the fish that they want to catch.

So for those who didn’t get the fishing analogy it’s like this. Web 2.0 allows the user to use the internet for their needs and their purposes to fulfil their wants and desires.
According to Tim O’Reilly, one of the people behind the concept of web 2.0, describes its principle is his article ‘What is Web 2.0?’ One of these key principles is to understand ‘web as a platform’ in which users control their own data. Below is a map showing O’Reilly’s understanding of how web 2.0 works.

Probably one of the biggest features of web 2.0 that separates it from its predecessor is that the internet is no longer a web designer posting things for the wider world. It is now users contributing to the web as well. Web 2.0 has given the user to use the internet to post their own videos and photos, to post their own opinions on blogs and so on. The user is giving back to the net. That is what is so exciting and dynamic about web 2.0. This is no longer a one-way street. This is a highway of information and communication in which the user is an active participant.