What is Web 2.0?

Bahjat AbuhadbaDillon Rath

Jessica Smith

What is Web 2.0

Web 2.0:is a trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users.

Examples of Web 1.0 and 2.0

- Web 1.0: such as Double click, Akamai and mp3.com

- Web 2.0: Google AsSense, Napseter, Wikipedia…etc

Note: What defines a site as 1.0 and 2.0 has been urgent to find since many compnies began using Web 2.0 as a Buzzword.

What defines Web 2.0?

- The Web 2.0 Conference in October 2004 has came with a statement that Web 2.0 is “The web as a platform”. Yet there are web 1.0 sites such as Double-Click and Akamai that were pioneers in treating the web as a platform which still makes it hard to define what Web 2.0 is.

Netscape Vs. Google

1. - Netscape: their flagship product was their web browser, and desktop applications. Netscape used its dominance in the browser to market its high-priced server products.

- Both the web browser and server moved up to be commodities.

Netscape Vs. Google

2. – Google: contrary to Netscape began as a web application, never sold or packaged a product.

- It had none of the trappings of the old software companies; had no scheduled releases, just continuous improvements.

- Google kept and managed a Database unlike Netscape which didn't need it.

Netscape Vs. Google

- We can conclude that both Google and Netscape are software companies but Netscape is related to old software companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP which got their starts in 1980s and Google is in the eBay, Amazon family, the relatively new guys.

Double-Click Vs Overtrue Vs AdSense

1. Double-Click: like Google is true child of the internet era. Still the new site Overtrue somewhat out powered double-click.

2. AdSense: It outperformed Double-Click by Serving more advertisers apiece. 3. OverTrue: Its success came from the

understanding of the collective strength of small web sites if combined.

Akamai Vs. BitTorrent

- Akamai: Similar to Double-Click, while BitTorrent took more of an approach like other P2P pioneers.

- We can classify Akamai as Web 1.0 and BitTorrent as Web 2.0.

Harnessing Collective Intelligence

- There are many examples of how using collectively classified information has had a great impact in the internet and electronic world.

- Examples:

1. Yahoo! Was born as a collection of links that soon expanded to millions of sites

Harnessing Collective Intelligence

2. Google: that had a breakthrough in search has made it without dispute a pioneer when it comes to search engines.

3.eBay: the collective activity of all its users allowed anybody to purchase anything form anywhere.

Recent Trends:

- Wikipedia: is a free,[4] multilingual, open content encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

- Wikipedia is already in the top 100 web sites and many predict it soon end up in the top 10.

- Note: Network effect from users are the key to dominance in today's web 2.0

Blogging and the Wisdom of Crowds

• Blog– A personal home page in diary format

• RSS– Most significant advance in the fundamental

architecture of the web– Allows someone to link not just to a page, but

to subscribe to it, with notification every time that page changes

Blogging and the Wisdom of Crowds

– Means that the web browser is not the only means of viewing a web page

– Used to push notices of new blog entries and all kinds of data updates, including stock quotes, weather data, and photo availability

• RSS makes weblog different from a ordinary website

Blogging and the Wisdom of Crowds

• Tom Coates – “It may seem like a trivial piece of functionality now,

but it was effectively the device that turned weblogs from an ease-of-publishing phenomenon into a conversational mess of overlapping communities. For the first time it became relatively easy to gesture directly at a highly specific post on someone else's site and talk about it. Discussion emerged. Chat emerged. And - as a result - friendships emerged or became more entrenched. The permalink was the first - and most successful - attempt to build bridges between weblogs.

Blogging and the Wisdom of Crowds

• Web 2.0 harnesses collective intelligence and this makes the “blogsphere” powerful!

1. Search engines use link structures to help predict useful pages, bloggers, as the most prolific and timely linkers, have a disproportionate role in shaping search engines results

Blogging and the Wisdom of Crowds

2. The blogging community is so highly self-referential, bloggers paying attention to other bloggers magnifies their visibility and power.

• Mainstream Media’s Viewpoint– They view the blogging community as

competition, because its not the viewpoint of a few people, but a large audience

Data is the Next Intel Inside

• Database management is a core competency of Web 2.0 companies– Napster (songs)

– MapQuest (maps)

– eBay (products and sellers)

– Amazon (products)

•

Who owns the data?

• MapQuest– Bottom of every map you see NacTeq or

TeleAtlas, Digital Globe• NavTeq – invested $750 million to build their

database• Digital Globe – invested $500 million to build their

database

– Now Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft entered the market and easily offered a competing application by licensing the same data

Who owns the data?

• Amazon– R.R. Bowker (ISBN database)– Took database and enhanced the data , adding

publisher-supplied data such as cover images, table of contents, index, and sample material.

– Now Amazon is the primary source for bibliographic data on books and a reference source for scholars and librarians as well as consumers

– Amazon now uses their own ISBN, ASIN, which creates an equivalent namespace for products without one.

Data is the Next Intel Inside

• Google Maps– Paired up with housingmaps.com

• Uses Craiglist and Google Maps

• Expect to see battles between data suppliers and application vendors in the next few years, as both realized just how important certain classes of data will become as building blocks for Web 2.0 applications

Data is the Next Intel Inside

• Control over data may be the chief source of competitive advantage

• The Rise of proprietary databases will result in a Free Data movement – Wikipedia– Creative Commons

End of the Software Release Cycle

• One of the defining characteristics of internet era software is that it is delivered as a service, not a product

– Changes in Business Model of a Company1. Operations must become a core competency

2. Users must be treated as co-developers

Lightweight Programming Models

•Based off of the hypertext theory, then overthrew it•RSS has become the single most widely used web service

• Examples:– Amazon.com

• Uses 2 forms: SOAP and REST– SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol

– Which uses XML data over HTTP

– REST: Representational State Transfer

– An additional lightweight approach

• Google.com– Uses simple AJAX, which is made up of

Javascript and XML• Some significant lessons:

– Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems, not the usual IT mindset

– Think syndication, not coordination. Focusing information on an outward motion, not requiring a return on it

– Design for hackability and remixability, makes it extremely low to re-use

Innovation in Assembly

• Lightweight business models which are combined together to form new services

Software Limitations

• Web 2.0– Now not limited to the PC platform– Prime examples:

• iPod/iTunes and TiVo

Rich User Experiences

• Started with Pei Wei’s Viola browser in ’92 which delivered “applets”

• Moved on to Java which started in ’95

• Then on to DHTML, and then several years ago Macromedia coined the term “Rich Internet Applications” which highlighted the capabilities of Flash

AJAX

• A key component of Web 2.0, made up of several technologies:– Standards-based presentation using XHTML and CSS

– Dynamic display and interaction using the Document Object Model

– Data interchange and manipulation using XML and XSLT

– Asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest

– And JavaScript binding everything together

Web 2.0 Patterns

• Based off of Christopher Alexander’s book, “A Pattern Language”

1. The Long Tail– Small sites make up the bulk of the internet’s

content

2. Data is the Next Intel Inside– Applications are increasingly data-driven

3. Users Add Value– The competitive advantage in internet

applications is the extent to which users add their own data to that which you provide

4. Network Effects by Default– Only a small number of users will go to the

trouble of adding value to your application

5. Some Rights Reserved– Intellectual property protection limits re-use

and prevents experimentation

6. The Perpetual Beta– When devices and programs are connected to

the internet, applications are no longer software artifacts, but ongoing services

7. Cooperate, Don’t Control– Web 2.0 applications are built of a network of

cooperating data services

8. Software Above the Level of a Single Device– The PC is no longer the only access device

for internet applications