How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Web.
This is an excerpt from “Three Internet Trends To Watch in 2006″. Visit The Business Ledger to read the whole article.
Everything old is new again. “Web 2.0” is no exception. Web 2.0 is a collection of ideas about how to build Web sites and make them better for users, including improved user interface technologies and better user interaction capabilities. (More about Web 2.0 here and here.)
If the goal of this sounds eerily familiar, it is. It’s all about getting people to your site and keeping them there. So what makes Web 2.0 interesting?
The best way to find out is to look at some leading examples:
•Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) illustrates one example of an improved user interface. Note how you can drag the map around without having to go back to the server and reload a new image like MapQuest and other 1.0 sites. The technology behind that is known as “Ajax.” While not new, Google Maps harnessed Ajax in a new way and is gaining market share by offering a better, smoother user experience.
•Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) is a great example of how to improve user interaction, aka “community.” Del.icio.us helps users manage, share and organize bookmarks. Managing is no big deal—it’s similar to the way you manage bookmarks in your browser. Sharing and organizing is built around a feature called “social tagging.” Users bookmark something and give it a label or tag meaningful to them. Other users can search by tag for links and see what other people are tagging that they might also be interested in. Search for the tag “marketing” and you’ll get a big picture view of what’s going on in marketing on the Web today.
•Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) is a great example of giving people a compelling reason to come back. Sure, it uses Ajax and tags, but the real reason people go there is to look at pictures: yours, your friends’ or someone else’s. You can create prints, posters or post a photo to your blog. Flickr is creating an extensive, unique and difficult-to-replace data store of something people really want—their memories—and that makes Flickr very, very Web 2.0.
Finally, an important part of Web 2.0 is the ability for users to extend an application for their own purposes. You can visit any of these sites and, with a little bit of skill, harness them for your own purposes.