Website Design Tips - Hypergurl

Web 2.0 is it important?

Anyone who has been around the internet the last couple of years has most likely come across the term Web 2.0 and are most likely confused as to what it means exactly.

Web 2.0 is considered by many to be the second phase of the World Wide Web. The term was first introduced by Tim O’Reilly in 2004. For those that don’t know, Tim’s company, O’Reilly Media produces technological texts both online and in print.

In the companies own words they have an:

“unshakeable belief in the power of information to spur innovation”

So what does the second phase of WWW mean? According to O’Reilly, the second phase refers to the dynamic interaction of people which is best explained by example.

Let’s say Web 1.0 is pre dot com crash of 2001.

In Web 1 Britannica Online was a highly popular encyclopedia that was updated by the companies staff and access to the information was via paid membership. In contrast, Web 2 has Wikipedia which is similar to an online encyclopedia with one major difference. The website has been developed through visitors adding to the content. Who’d have thought in 2001 that a free encyclopedia built and maintained through the efforts of website visitors would be the twelfth most visited site on the Internet.

Why is the concept of web 2.0 important to webmasters? While searching through some of the most successful websites and online businesses, it’s clear to see they all have something in common. They have all emerged from simple publishing and towards visitor participation.

YouTube has been built up by visitors adding video content to the website.

MySpace is a social networking site built up through visitors adding content to free membership pages.

Yahoo offers chat rooms, clubs and personal member pages.

Website content on Ebay is user generated as thousands of products are auctioned and sold.

Blogging has become highly popular with visitors being given the opportunity to take part in and comment on the articles written.

Google Adsense is also considered a Web 2.0 application where website content determines what ads are shown and the publisher has the last say in where they are displayed. Google Adwords is also Web 2 in that it’s the advertisers that control the textual content of Adsense advertisements.

When discussing Web 2.0, it’s important to consider that all these websites rely on viral marketing. By viral marketing, I mean ‘word of mouth’ and we all know how powerful that can be. For instance, how many movies have you seen simply because a friend has told you how great it is? If an online business relies on paid advertising to grow its visitor numbers, then you can bet your bottom dollar it’s not Web 2.0 compliant.

It seems that if the last two years are anything to go by, websites allowing the user to contribute to the content and direction of its growth are going to be dominant players in the Web 2.0 era.