Web 2.0 is really one of the most misunderstood terms floating around the Internet at the moment.

Let’s be clear here. Web 2.0 certainly is not a brand new version of the Internet. Fundementally, it’s really utilising existing technologies to benefit people. It’s a movement away from static content and towards interaction with people. Businesses simply need to embrace the ‘web’ as a platform, using it’s many strengths … build their services and apps using the Internet’s unique features as opposed to building apps and expecting the Internet to suit as the platform.
Bottom line here … Interactivity! People can upload as well as download in infinite ways.

Examples

Tim O’Reilly (founder of O’Rielly Media and a supporter of free software and open source movements) sums it up pretty well by saying Web 2.0 has a layered approach to the levels of interaction with users.

• Level 3 applications, the most "Web 2.0"-oriented, only exist on the Internet, deriving their effectiveness from the inter-human connections and from the network effects that Web 2.0 makes possible, and growing in effectiveness in proportion as people make more use of them. O'Reilly gave as examples eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball, and AdSense.
• Level 2 applications can operate offline but gain advantages from going online. O'Reilly cited Flickr, which benefits from its shared photo-database and from its community-generated tag database.
• Level 1 applications operate offline but gain features online. O'Reilly suggests a good example of this would be Google Docs & Spreadsheets as well as iTunes because of its music-store portion.
• Level 0 applications work as well offline as online. O'Reilly gave the examples of MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps.

Misconceptions

Be clear also that some website design effects have also been ‘linked’ to Web 2.0. Rounded corners and drop shadows to name just two are certainly found on Web 2.0 sites however these are simply fashionable designer elements. The same is said of technologies like AJAX (allows a web-page to request an update for some part of its content, and to alter that part in the browser, without needing to refresh the whole page at the same time) and DHTML (usually found in dropdown menus). Whilst these are often required for Web 2.0 sites to function well, they aren’t required.

What Can You Plug In?

I mentioned AJAX as one way to get a better ‘user experience’. Similar technologies such as Flash, the new Flex from Adobe and Java have all evolved to potentially improve end-user interaction in browser based applications. As are these:

• XML and RSS feeds provide your customers with website syndication for your ‘pushed’ content. As I mentioned in a recent article, RSS allows for quick integration of your data without having to even visit your site … user convenience.
• Flowing out of RSS is a hybrid tool called mashups. A mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool. So many tools exist today that allow your site to pull in 3rd party RSS feeds, filter them using a criteria your specify and then display this distilled information within your own site. Pretty neat that you can provide this to your users using external data sources.
  • Another example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source.
• Weblog (Blogs) publishing tools as well as Wiki and Forum software support user generated content which includes user commenting thus providing additional back and forth interaction.
• Social Indexing which is also known as tagging or social classification is now also a default method to annotate and categorise content. You’ll typically see this hyperlinked ‘words’ in blog articles, for example. Tagging is intended to make a body of information increasingly easy to search, discover, and navigate over time. The result is an immediate gain in your user's being able to find related content and this can be subtly woven to link to sales pages/pitches as well.

You can see the pattern here. A better and interactive user experience ... people to people. Move away from the boring static content web site pages of yesterday and get some involvement from your users … and because you involve them, they come back. And having return customers is just great for business.