Defining Web 2.O
In order to talk about Web 2.0 it must first be defined. Defining this concept turns out to be much harder than it may first appear, so the goal of this blog is to bring into focus what this term means and help us understand the concept a little better. The best definition that I could find came from the man credited with coining the term (Tim O’Reilly) and he defines it in this way: “Web 2.0 doesn't have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of these principles, at a varying distance from that core.” (1) We see from this example that there is no clear defining set of guidelines to define Web 2.0, but instead, it is made up of a set of core competencies. These core competencies where defined by Tim O’Reilly, so now let us look at some of these core competencies in order to gain a clearer idea of what Web 2.0 is.
There are several competencies that were mentioned, but I want to focus on three of them. The first is that it must provide a service. Some good examples of websites that provide a service would be Mapquest, Yahoo Maps, and Maps.com. These sites provide us with directions (which is a service), so they share that core component of a Web 2.0 application. The second core competency that Mr. O’Reilly speaks of is that these sites must possess an “architecture of participation”. We see this clearly exemplified in sites such as Myspace and Facebook. These sites allow the user to add music, photos, and unique backgrounds to their own personal web page. These sites allow for users to communicate with other members of the site. These sites encourage participation from the users.
The third and final competency I want to talk about is the ability of these sites to harness a “collective intelligence.” A good example of this competency would be Wikipedia. This site utilizes the intelligence of all users to benefit everyone else. In other words, the collective intelligence of all is greater than the collective intelligence of one.
The reason I wanted to talk about these competencies is because there is no good definition of what Web 2.0 is, and it is hard to describe, but Mr. O’Reilly developed this concept, so what better way to understand it then to get into the mind of the man who fathered the term. I know that there is still some cloudiness as to what Web 2.0 is, but my hope is that this short blog helped to bring at least a little clarity to the issue.
1) http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html