How is Web 2.0?: Introduction to Web 2.0

How is Web 2.0?

Foreword

Most definitions used by the larger technical community make absolutely zero sense to everyday users (business and leisure alike). I know because I’ve tried to use them when explaining Web 2.0 and they just don’t work - blank stares and confused faces have been the norm. - Ken Yarmosh, “Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business“, Technosight.com.

“How is Web 2.0?” article is a commentary analysis on Web 2.0 cyber environment from user-perspective. The article’s objective is to expose social humanistic consequences that underlie an interpretation to Web 2.0 technical and practical functions.

The article consisted of several parts:
Introduction to Web 2.0
— The Machine is Us/ing Us
Driving Forces to Web 2.0
— Web 2.0 as Architecture of Participation
— Web 2.0 as Process of Learning
— Web 2.0 as Cultural Evolution
Web 2.0 in Indonesia

Each part is conceptually relate to each other, therefore it is recommended to read all parts. Links are also available in order to view relevant sites.

Introduction to Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0?. As defined by Wikipedia.com, Web 2.0 is a phrase coined by the O’Reilly Media in 2003 and later popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004. The term refers to the second generation of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies, which facilitates collaboration and sharing between users. Companies that have said to best represent Web 2.0 are Google, Apple, and Amazon.There had been a confusion of defining Web 2.0, as to fully comprehend the concept of Web 2.0 would take us beyond matters of commerce and technology. Even if the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update of Web technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the web as a platform.

The following table will show a comparison between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 web applications.

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
DoubleClick		Google AdSense
Ofoto		Flickr
Akamai		BitTorrent
mp3.com		Napster
Britannica Online		Wikipedia
personal websites		blogging
evite		upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation		search engine optimization
page views		cost per click
screen scraping		web services
publishing		participation
content management systems		wikis
directories (“taxonomy”)		tagging (”folksonomy”)
stickiness		syndication

The above list composed in year 2005 by Tim O’Reilly, and two years later, the list continues to extend, naming other Web 2.0 application such as Gmail, YouTube, BitTorrent, Google Maps, NetVibes, and MySpace or Friendster profiles as the advancement of personal websites; Web 2.0 is also now applicable to other devices aside personal computers, such as cellphones and iPods. It is constantly evolving or (re-)inventing new applications.
Derived from its ethimology, Web 2.0 gives an indication that it correlates between hierarchical stages, henceforth being dynamically progressive: there is an era identified as Web 1.0, and there will be another era known as Web 3.0 and so forth. For instance, according to Espen Andersen’s personal definition, each era is defined by the following:

• Web 1.0: Streams of information
• Web 2.0: Streams of interaction
• Web 3.0: Streams of interpretation

The cycle suggested an organic-like situation that motivates people to nourish, to foresee its growth, and to trail on its progression -just as living in a simulated ecosystem. Web 2.0 itself did not end Web 1.0’s lifecycle or in any way terminating its functions, this is because both paradigms were never disintegrated from each other. Web 1.0 is a process of building up Web 2.0, constantly adjusting the World Wide Web and synchronizing it with more possibilities that human habitual reality could offer.
Such ideology is comparable to the predesigned principle of Cybernetics. Cybernetics defined as “the science of control and communication in the animal and the machine.”; it compares the behaviour in living creatures with behaviour in machines. Using this analogy, today’s World Wide Web as if having brain synapses, nervous system, and the web applications as its conditioned reflexes. This is possible because sets of rules built into software can interpret human decisions as significant computerized values, forming the commonly known artificial intelligence. The artificial intelligence may operate autonomously according strings of programmed codes, just as an alarm clock would buzz precisely at five in the morning, but it still requires human intelligence in order to function effectively.
Even so, “artifical intelligence” was always a misleading term because it gave an unwary person the impression that computers could be as independently intelligent as humans do. It sounds like Isaac Isamov’s science fiction where androids and robots invade the earth. In spite of the overstatement, perceiving the bigger picture of Web 2.0 will not take its users away further from the ways of reality; on the other hand, it is by understanding today’s human relations and sense of community -as simple as that. The Web is a machine used to assist humans; the human is in charge and knows both the system’s capabilities and limitations. Human intelligence, albeit “slow”, self-limited, and lacks of precision, has the X factors such as creativity, intuition, compassion, strength, free will, and soul, which thus far too complex to be calculated and mimicked by computer intelligence.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

The Machine is Us/ing Us. The title reminds us of a simple and yet inspiring video by Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of Cultural Anthropology of Kansas State University, which exposes a fluid-like Internet evolution derived from an anology closer to the heart –”…ourselves.”. How does this work?

According to its usability, Richard McManus (Read/Write Web) and Joshua Porter (Bokardo) concluded six main themes covering design in Web 2.0 cyber ecosystem:

1. Writing semantic markup (transition to XML)
2. Providing Web services (moving away from place)
3. Remixing content (about when and what, not who or why)
4. Emergent navigation and relevance (users are in control)
5. Adding metadata over time (communities building social information)
6. Shift to programming (separation of structure and style)

Theory then became practice; and as Tim O’Reilly summarized, the key principle of Web 2.0 is “the service gets better the more people use it”. If it is a matter of usage, then how can people really use Web 2.0? Firstly, they need tools, and know how to use them. Whereas Web 1.0 has “websites”, then Web 2.0 users highlighted -and corner-rounded- the term: “web apps”. Web apps stands for web applications; applications that will aid people as their tools or devices. Adapting to WebWare100 Awards nomination categories, web apps on today’s Internet can be classified into 10 types of usage:

• Browsing: Web browsers, extensions, widgets, and security. Fundamental Web access tools.
• Communications: e-mail, chat, VOIP. Person-to-person communications platforms.
• Community: social networks, groups. Online gathering places and group-powered content.
• Data: search, storage, backup, sharing, and sync. Tools for finding online info, and storing and sharing files.
• Entertainment: Games and contests. Tools for taking time off.
• Media: audio, video, photo. Places to consume and share videos, photos, and music.
• Mobile: portable utilities and apps. Products that make your mobile phone a Web 2.0 appliance.
• Productivity: apps, business tools, commerce. Sites for getting things done and doing online business.
• Publishing: blogging, web content, design tools. Tools for producing your own site.
• Reference: Mapping, reference works, and education. Fonts of knowledge–from history to movies to maps.

Webware 100 also stated that “Software is becoming Webware.”, which would be elaborated by the following characteristics:

• Productivity applications. Microsoft may own the desktop, but not the Web. Online, Google has solid productivity apps. And there are dozens of upstarts in this market too.
• Data-driven applications. Many new online services rely on real-time data that simply could not be encapsulated into software. Examples include Google Maps, Zillow and Farecast.
• Community services. Webware enables people to network, share their lives, and work together. Examples are MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, and SmartSheet.

All of these web apps are equally primary tools in the Web 2.0 neural network. In order to distinguish each application’s function, internet-users ought to be familiar with the following methods:

Social Networking

: Social networking idea is the most popular practice done in Web 2.0 environment. The concept has spread worldwide since the boom of MySpace in America and Europe, and of Friendster in most Southeast Asian region (See map from Valleywag.com). Within social networking sites, internet users train themselves to establish their presence in the internet, in a parallel and closely related way as self-actualization and social recognition is in real-life. Social networking can also be the gateway towards niche-blogging, because personality defines subjectivity, subjectivity defines one’s life choices, and assembly of those choices helps create what is known as “niche”. Major social networking sites are also integrated with blogging software, such as MySpace blogs or Friendster blogs.

Social networking geographical patterns cited from Valleywag.com:

• Orkut leads in the Indian subcontinent, as well as Brazil;
• Facebook is stronger, internationally, than Myspace, with surprising strongholds in the Middle East;
• hi5.com is the most international of all the social networks, leading in Peru, Colombia, Central America, and other, scattered countries such as Mongolia, Romania, and Tunisia;
• both Bebo and Skyblog follow colonial patterns, the first strong in smaller English-speaking countries such as Ireland and New Zealand, and the latter in Francophone countries;
• and Friendster, the original social network, leads all across Southeast Asia.
• Fotolog, a photo service defeated in the US by Friendster, has re-emerged as the dominant social network in Argentina and Chile.

There are also several “official” regional based social network sites, namely Indonesia’s LiveConnector and Fupei, India’s Cafe Ibibo, and Japan’s Mixi. There are also interest-based, such as Topix.net (News), Goodreads and Revish (Booklovers), and Ilike.com (Music).

Examples: Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Facebook, Catster, Dogster, etc.

Niche Blogging

: In O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 definition, blogging perceived as later version of personal websites; blogging itself is the base characteristic of Web 2.0 –as Curt Finch elaborated on Linux News: “Web 1.0 was a Web site that looked like a brochure or a resume. Web 2.0 is a blog.”. Two years later, Web 2.0 end-users crave for something more specific and more valuable than just general “rants and ramblings”. In short, framing several issues into a particular theme. Niche itself means “unique ecological role of an organism in a community” or “the role an organism fills in an ecosystem”; combined with today’s blogging, niche means that the content (posts) published in a particular blog derived from a specific and objective subject field. The concept of niche constructs scheme of information according to users’ specified interest, hobby, activities, personality, professionality, any subjects that relates to the distinction of who they are and/or their preferred life choices. Niche blogging emphasized substance over style, value over presence, and normally indicated success by its (google-able, technorati-faved, alexa-ranked, etcetera) popularity. Success may have differed from one blogger’s viewpoint to the next, but overall, it is ideal only if it is sharing valuable and appropriate content. Blogging led to the popular use of two-way hyperlinking and permalinks, blog directories, tagging or folksonomies, open source software plugins, and RSS.
Examples: Cuteoverload.com’s niche is “Pets”, or “Animals”. Adsoftheworld’s niche is “Advertising”. Thesuperficial.com’s niche is “Celebrity”. JohnChow.com’s niche is “Online Marketing”. Perspektif Online’s niche is “News” or “Politics”. Lost Girls World’s niche is “Travel”.

Examples of niche blog directories: MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog.

RSS

: RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text, free from the website/blog’s style formatting. RSS documents are streamed through one’s feed reader or aggregator. Several social bookmarking sites (such as Technorati) or blog directories (such as MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog) can also read content feeds from blogs detected in their database. A feed reader is a software application or remotely hosted service that collects syndicated content from sources –namely blog posts, news headlines, podcasts, or vlogs– and provides a single consolidated view.
Examples of feed readers: Google Reader, iGoogle, NetVibes, Bloglines, My Yahoo, etcetera.

Tips: How to find out and submit your site’s RSS address: Find text that says RSS or its logo, Right Click and Copy Link Location.

Social Bookmarking

: Social bookmarking is a way for internet users to store, classify (tag), share, and search Internet bookmarks. Benefit of social bookmarking sites is its collaboratively stored directories of shareworthy resources –underline “shareworthy”. Social bookmarking sites adapted the conventional browser bookmarking mechanism that allows people to save a particular web page. Other users in the network can also view the saved pages, hence some social bookmarking sites found integrated with social networking-type of interface (e.g., ability to display pictures, “About Me” information, and the ability to submit a blog as “authority” or “fans”). Social bookmarking sites also play a role of democracy taking process on web. Eventhough internet users traditionally use bookmarking for easier return to one particular site or web page, it is more popular for its function which similar to votes or voting ballots. The more people bookmarked the site (using the bookmarklets or the site’s interface), the more “votes” counted, hence the site has more chances in being found. Social bookmarking site is one definitive example on how a web application is substantially built by its end-users, not solely by its web publishers. Examples: Digg, del.icio.us, Technorati, StumbleUpon, etcetera.

Image from amoswong.com

Wiki

: A wiki is a collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. Wiki has been said to be a concept derived from message boards or discussion forums. It is a workspace where everyone could be involved in working on one discourse or one matter of issue on a particular “wiki page”. A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing and searching information. Like blogging or websites, it has internal and external hyperlinks that interconnected from one content to the other. It also has its own special text for editing called wikitext. Several types of wiki are: personal wiki (for offline, personal use), bliki (a combination of blog and wiki), semantic wiki (wiki using Semantic Web technology), database wiki (SQL-like wiki), corporate wiki, peer-to-peer wiki, and guerilla wiki The most succesful example of wiki is Wikipedia.com, along with its free and downloadable wiki software at MediaWiki.com. Other notable wikis are the FBI’s (Federal Bireau of Investigation) corporate wiki and A Million Penguin wiki where everyone could participate in writing a novel.
Examples: Wiktionary, LyricWiki, AboutUs.org, Uncyclopedia, A Million Penguins, etc.

Folksonomy

: A folksonomy is the practice and method of collaborative categorization using freely-chosen keywords called tags. It displays keywords, buzzwords, or tags as simple user-defined categories. In non-fiction books or essays, there is a section called the “Index” at the ending part, “Index” consisted of keywords, also pages relevant to those words; tagging is similar to the use of indexing. By tagging, users can independently categorize any content themselves, consequently creating community-generated tags and building network directories. For instance, from the results of tagging, users would know that photos that are relevant to “family” or “friends” are the most popular ones in Flickr; they would also know that photos of “demonstration”, or “bands” are available distinctively. Tagging also helps users to search through vast directories, and find which ones likely to be published on a certain network.The results of tagging often displayed as “tag clouds”. Tagging is commonly used for social bookmarking sites, blog directory sites, or file-sharing databases.

 

Image from flytip.com

Great chance that those methods are somewhat familiar or have already been done repetitiously over the last five years; nevertheless, most internet users have not yet understood the whole idea as a sequence. For that reason, the acclaim of Web 2.0 has since provided a term that every user could relate to, once they are required to define such cyber experience –and apparently, the word is catching on.

Continued to Driving Forces to Web 2.0

Note: This article is still on editing process. Please shout me out if you have any suggestions or corrections for this article, just leave a comment!

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