What is web 2.0 ?

Web 2.0 is a term coined to explain conceptual amalgamation of technologies, specialised applications, community collaboration and overall change of user experience on Internet observed by everyone. Right from Google Maps to Wikipedia or WordPress to Drupal come under the umbrella of Web 2.0. They share the fraternity under the fatherhood of web 2.0. This term has nothing to do with any updates in technological specification of WWW or HTTP, Its just a term to express advancements in internet applications which has definately changed the way Internet is used and perceived by us.

Web 2.0 as a Amalgamation of Technologies:
AJAX has been a buzz word since 2005 and has really proved its potential in bringing out the paradigm changes to User Interfacing. Web Portals are no Longer some dead pages with some business logic at backend waiting for a user request, It has transformed into a complete software killer applications deployed over the Internet. Best Example I can think of such kind of transform is google docs and spreadsheets and all this is made possible by AJAX and other supporting technologies.

Why Amalgamation ?
AJAX is not a technology in itself, but a collection of other technologies arranged in a way to deliver stunning highly responsive GUI applications on Internet.

Component Technologies of AJAX :
Javascript
XMLHttpRequest or ActiveX Object capability of browsers
DOM Manipulation (By JavaScript)
CSS Manipulation (By JavaScript)

RSS/Atom is another technology which eases information dissemination and has become dominant on internet in the name of feeds.Businesses can reach potential customers using these feeds which serves as a boradcast message.RSS/Atom is based on XML which is open standard and human readable, Feeds can be used to create mashups based on your interest or the interest of your potential users. You can mix and match and really make a information rich web portal.

Web 2.0 as an amalgamation of special applications:
Wiki, CMS, blogs, forums,social networking are special internet applications which have changed the way user look for information on internet. Moreover these are easily pluggable applications which attach themselves to your web site and help the administrator to maintain large information base in a clean way. Most of these applications are open sourec and can be integrated for free with little or no configuration, some of the good examples being drupal, wikimedia, wordpress, joomla etc. Community Wiki's can be exploited to create a large information base of some particular area and hence create specialised wiki's. Please read here to find out how wiki works.

Web 2.0 from the perspective of Clustering information:
Social bookmarking, tagging (folksonomy), permalink etc are ways to give an order to information spread across internet. A single institution can not do it, so the job is taken up by common users who tag information into labels that interest them. These labels help bring order to the information on internet, Sometimes these tags can also be used to search information on internet. Users also share there information in terms of bookmarks which is now popularly called social bookmarking (del.icio.us) .These tags can be very useful when you are looking for information on internet.


I hope it gives you some information as to what are we looking at !! Puprose of this blog is to expose ways of creating such applications practically and to use all aspects of web 2.0 to create a information rich and attractive web portal. We would look at technologies like AJAX, RSS/Atom web services in great depth and from practical point of view .