There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the term "Web 2.0" online, although, the term itself hasn't quite made it to the dinner table yet.
Nowadays, any company jumping on the web likes to consider themselves "Web 2.0", with or without the prerequisites that constitute the 2nd Generation of the World Wide Web. O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International co-created the Web 2.0 concept two years ago and their theorem is still used today to define Web 2.0.
What does it take to be a Web 2.0 company or site? There's a bit of a checklist available which I'll mention in a second, but fundamentally, a Web 2.0 site is best described as the Social Web. People are using the Internet to interact with each other, not just visit a site and read a couple of pages.
They want the web to come to them and they want their feedback to make an impact in the grand scheme of things. This is where the checklist comes in to play.
A Web 2.0 site utilizes a bevy of tools to help bring the web to their customers, traditionally using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). With this technology, visitors or patrons of a company website can subscribe to feeds that will bring their favorite content or news to them, for example, new podcasts, blog entries, and press releases. They can also add comments, post their own information, and influence the companies that they visit ~ and while they're at it, help to shape the second phase of the Internet.
Because the concept is already 2 years old, many companies have already employed various Web 2.0 features over the past couple of years. Some "Web 1.0" companies (companies that had an online presence before the Dawn of the New Internet) are actually Web 2.0 by virtue of the enhancements made to their sites with AJAX, CSS, and RSS.
Keep an eye out for more on this topic and how InteractiveVoices is utilizing new web technologies in future blog posts.
Take care,
Stephanie
