Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is the new generation of the internet, applications that broaden our possibilities. With web 2.0 the internet is much more interactive and audience created. Websites and applications such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia and various blog sites. Web 2.0 allows the user to exchange content and communicate with other users.
With new websites such as Web 2.0 users have more control over the website instead of the website solely being run by the producers, where as before users could only retrieve information from a web 1.0 website.
"the characteristics of Web 2.0 are: rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content, metadata, web standards and scalability*"

YouTube, the video upload site is a fine example of a Web 2.0 as the website would not be able to work without the user. The producer requires users to upload home made videos to the site to increase site hits. Without the home videos then there will be no hits, which means no more rise in users, which then means no more videos posted to the site.
Flickr is another fine example, similiar to YouTube however it revolves around photos uploaded by other users.


*scalability is a desirable property of a system, a network, or a process, which indicates its ability to either handle growing amounts of work in a graceful manner or to be readily enlarged.