Web 2.0 is HOT and how can we back up this statement? Look no further than Google, the “definition” of Web 2.0 and its stock price of $600++. Many investment professionals believe that Google has a long way to go, which would indicate that the concept of Web 2.0 also has a long run ahead of it. If “ecommerce” was a key wealth creator of the 1990’s, numerous correlations between that and “Web 2.0” have convinced savvy business people to create business models incorporating these technologies with the goal of generating similar results in the near term!

What is Web 2.0?
Interestingly, there is no one definition. The term relates to technologies and concepts that have started initially from within the consumer world.

Common characteristics of Web 2.0 include:

• Ease of use
• Oriented toward “user at the center” methodology
• Enabling the ability for many people to sharing info with many others
• Rich unified user interface
• User experience is faster with easier content creation, consumption and sharing

Technology associated with Web 2.0:

• AJAX & FLASH Technology
• RSS & ATOM Distribution Protocols
• Peer to peer protocols and tools (instant messaging)
• Blogs for content publishing and commenting
• Wikis for content collaboration
• Web mashups for the visual combination on a single screen of data and business logic from two or more data sources (developed in days)
• Social Networking and Tagging for publishing and sharing info of interest to others including text, files, photos, videos, ideas, etc

The defining features of Web 2.0 are that of leveraging a “platform” to organize information and make it universally accessible and useful. To date, Web 2.0 has made significant impacts in the consumer world but has only minimally penetrated into Corporate America which leaves a tremendous set of opportunities wide open!

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