What is Web 2.0?

By Waqar Ali Shah

Web 2.0 appears to be the latest buzzword to hit cyberspace at a time when users and developers alike are struggling to make sense out of rapidly moving Internet technologies, generating vague anticipation about the future. It is a notion that signifies different things to different people, representing everything from curvy Web graphics to revolutionary social transformations online. The idea however has profound ramifications both on the Web and off it. With the Web taking over what to public perception used to be known as the Internet, Web 2.0 represents the most recent shift in our awareness and expectation of what is increasingly shaping up to be the new face of cyberspace.

While the Internet actually consists of more than just the Web, including subsystems such as Usenet (the seemingly ancient, very popular discussion group system with a cult-like following) e-mail, file transfer protocol, Internet Relay Chat, and telnet(remember the text based chat of the early 1990s?), for many new users the World Wide Web (including web-based email) represents the overarching, if not only, reality of the Internet. For most of us, the Web is indeed synonymous with the Internet.

The Web awed the world with its simple interface and the almost instant, ubiquitous availability of information as and when required. From news to research, the Web became an important tool that transformed the way the world accessed and utilized information. The Web rapidly evolved into new forms supporting electronic commerce and broadband enabled rich media. While the first Web was a reflection of human thought, Web 2.0 is now a whole new force that is exerting an unprecedented influence back onto society.

Recently, increasingly complex Web applications are being referred to as a manifestation of the Web 2.0 paradigm. Some of the new technology innovations commonly associated with Web 2.0 are Ajax based websites mimicking desktop applications and rich media content creating new user interface layers. We are also told that Web 2.0 represents an increased economic utilization of the Internet. Communities are deemed to be an important part of the new paradigm, as are collaboration social networking and groupware services. Internet giants are introducing web-applications that enable users to process information remotely, including word processing, spreadsheets and media management. Internet marketing has spawned a range of services from Search Engine Optimisation to directory submissions. The social transformations attributed to innovative new services such as YouTube, MySpace, Orkut and Facebook may have revolutionized the way people view communities and interact with each other.

Video is another element that has featured most prominently in this era. The rapid acceptance of the .TV domain and its integration with the online video industry is a compounding factor contributing to the meteoric rise of video on the Web. Web video or tv channels represent a direct threat to traditional television and print media, a fact that is not lost on the big companies as they struggle to gain a share of the lucrative new medium. Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation of the power of the new Web is the way it has leveled the playing field between the corporate media and the individual, giving immense power to the individual and their ideas. The American political scene, for example, has been affected most dramatically by YouTube, with new faces with unconventional ideas such as Ron Paul gaining overnight popularity due to massive video campaigning on the Web, much to the chagrin of political competitors relying more on the traditional media. Mainstream media, it now appears, may not be so mainstream after all.

The increasing distinction between functionality and technology

There are, however, subtler, more profound undercurrents geared to shape the future of cyberspace. Foremost among these trends is an increasing emphasis on the “humanization” of technology, born out of a realization among both the creators and users of technology that the Web must become an extension of the mind, that great Enabler that bestows immense power to the mind to disseminate ideas, and by corollary, complex services, in a comprehensive, reliable manner. The result is both a desire and an effort geared not only toward separating the user interface from the backend, as was the case with the early years of the Web, but also to separate functionality from technique. To enable an easier translation of real world social and business processes to the web, the tools used to create highly functional web applications are becoming increasingly independent of the technology involved to create them. The absence of a clear divide between technology and functionality was a key hindrance in the adoption of the technology for many, confining most of the Web’s participants to being passive consumers of information. Today, technology seems to be a given. The robust infrastructure of Web 2.0 is as easily available today, as the Internet was to the home computer of the 1990s. With technology increasingly being taken for granted, your creativity seems to be the only limit to what you can do with the Web.

More important than the need to consume, belong or even participate, however, is the need to create. To create not only opinion, ideas and thought-trains, but to create complex services by putting together existing pieces of technology, elements that are rapidly becoming the standard, regular building blocks of this new paradigm, hiding their complexity beneath a layer of simple, intuitive functionality. An example of this new trend is the modular infrastructure presented by complex open source content management systems that allow non-technical people to create powerful information portals. What’s unique about the new trend is the ability of the average layman to create complex information applications with a few clicks of his mouse. With the technology being now readily, and in most cases, freely available, the onus is now on the human mind to introduce unique information processing paradigms that can enrich the lives of others around the world. The consequences of this great enabling are enormous, reaching out into the realms of sociology, economics and anthropology.

With Web 2.0, modular technology has been introduced, enabling the general public to give shape to their own unique aspirations live on cyberspace. The effect has been to introduce a nearly seamless extension of the individual’s imagination, made possible by increasingly user friendly technologies that allow complex manipulation of data, cleverly hiding the technical aspect from the functionality. The future of the Web will most likely see a fruition of the need to reduce, or eliminate, the divide between imagination and reality – or virtual reality, depending on how you perceive it. In time, this will in effect be an extension of the human mind as it reaches across the expanse of cyberspace, or even mass consciousness.

Copyright 2007 33 Consulting. All rights reserved.

Features of the Web 2.0 paradigm

Published 14 September 2007

by Waqar Ali Shah

Web 2.0 is actually a whole new way to view the Web (and the Internet). The Web 2.0 paradigm is all about perception: the perception of millions of participants of the evolving Web as they continue to use it. We present some features of this new paradigm that is affecting the lives of millions of “Netizens” around the world. These are perceptions that are shared amongst most users of the term:

• The realization that the Web actually mirrors the real world in content and functionality while uniquely contributing to it
• A conviction to work toward a smoother translation of real world social and businesses processes to the Internet.
• New processes must be created that leverage the unique nature of the Internet.
• The idea that the functionality provided by Web applications must be distinct from the technology required to create, maintain or use them. This functionality may be at least in part be provided by intuitive modular applications.
• The perception of entities operating on their own yet interacting with each other.
• The perception that individuals, businesses and governments as entities of a similar rank, possessing equal rights and opportunity.
• The perception that individuals, businesses and governments must be regarded as equal participants in information creation, processing and consumption.
• The perception that knowledge in itself is valuable, regardless of the perceived authority of the source.
• The perception that all producers of information must be provided equal functionality to share it.
• The perception that the Web intrinsically derives from individual human minds around the world, thereby increasingly forming a collective mind of humanity or a collective consciousness.