Web 2.0 Unveiled
There is a lot of press coverage and hype regarding Web 2.0 but any attempt to define Web 2.0 seems lacking in these articles. Essentially Web 2.0 is a buzz word to describe a new style of websites that have been brought about by a technological and cultural change.
Technological Change
The technological change is AJAX (which in techie speak is Asynchronous Javascript And XML) which basically means that the website can update a small part of the webpage rather than having to reload the whole page (you know, that little annoying bar at the bottom of your browser). The best example of this improvement is comparing the non AJAX Streetmap with the AJAX Google Maps, as you can see the AJAX experience is much more fluid. AJAX is an excellent technology but this in itself does not make an excellent user experience, the key is good UI (User Interface) design. Bad UI with AJAX is still an awful experience but good UI coupled with AJAX can make complex web applications a joy to use.
Cultural Change
The cultural change is that of user generated content. Rather than going the BBC News route of all content being published by employees and authorised users, all the content comes from anyone that wants to join in. Examples of user generated content are YouTube (www.youtube.com), flickr (www.flickr.com), Facebook (www.facebook.com) and StumbledUpon (www.stumbleupon.com).
In addition to the user generated content the sites generally have a community running through them allowing users to contact each other and view profiles and other submissions. It is this community that really enhances the site as it draws the users back and keeps them on the site. However the big problem with user generated content is that it needs a community to generate it, this creates a chicken and egg situation as nobody visits or adds content to an empty site, but without people adding content the site stays empty. The key to creating a community is small changes responding to the community's needs, for example facebook was initially only for Harvard, then a few key US universities, then all US universities, and so forth, gradually growing and expanding its reach as the community grew. It is this skill in understanding the target audience and knowing how to nurture it that brings success.
Chris Falconer, Chief Software Architect