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Friday, September 30, 2005 

Web 2.0

In the past few years there has been a huge trend towards Web 2.0. Many people are unaware of these shift, because they don't know the difference between the original web, Web 1.0, and the new web Web 2.0. At the same time they have probably been using Web 2.0 on a regular basis. If I were to sum up the differences between 1.0 and 2.0 it would come down to one word "dynamic." Web 1.0 pages were all static pages. A user of Web 1.0 would go to a website read a page, click a couple of links and that's all there was to it. The pages were all generated before hand and the reader simple accessed them. Web 2.0 focuses on dynamic webpages that allows the users of the page to have some control over them. An example of a dynamic webpage is this blog. Every time you come to this blog, or any blog, the page us generated right then and there. The only html that exists before hand is an html template, the actually content (ie the posts) are stored in a database some where. When a user comes to this site some software takes the template and the entries and automatically generates an html document "on the fly." Pretty nifty huh? The reason Web 2.0 has increased a great amount in the past year or two is because of the increased popularity in scripting languages, such as php and javascript, as well as a wealth of information available for the newcomers in the field. Another very important reason Web 2.0 has increased in popularity is also due to a shift in the usage of the computer. People no longer use a computer to simple do research while in their office or lab. Many people view the web as a way to connect and stay connected to, well, everything. Why would I want to store my calendar on my computer? I want to have access to it no matter where I am, which is made possible with Web 2.0 (I hear Google is coming out with a calendar soon). I can also always have my e-mail because of sites such as gmail. A few examples of Web 2.0 sites are:

  1. Flickr - post images, add tags to them and allow other people to comment on them
  2. digg.com - post links, increase the links popularity, post comments on each link
  3. wikipedia - create encyclopedia entries, users have the ability to edit any page at any time
This is a very small list of Web 2.0 sites out there, in the comment section post links to your favorite Web 2.0 sites. =) On a side note it was very hard to find a picture for this post. In the end I gave up and just searched for something with my favorite color, blue. =p

i couldn't get flickr to work on my computer so i just deleted it =P haha. yay for learnign new things liek web 2.0!

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