Web 2.0 and Beyond

I have been following the trends of Web 2.0 for a while and experiencing the changes in the way we use internet. I gave special attention to Web 2.0 when I found one of the main features declaration for newly released Java SE 6 is the support for Web 2.0. Earlier internet was a platform for 2 parties to push/pull information and do transaction. The 2 parties were more or less divisible by their functionalities like information/product supplier and user/consumer. Now its not only or no more that, its about participation of all the parties involved. Anyone can be in the recieving end and anyone can be in the supplying end as well. The more participation is there, the more valuable the service is. Its no more focused on attracting the giant companies or investors, the focus is now distributed to the individual netizens (citizens of the internet). The best article describing Web 2.0 is written by Tim O’Reilly. Google is in the lead of Web 2.0 initiatives instead of Microsoft, and you are not surprised!? Not co-incidentally, Google has been recently voted in a massive survey by Fortune as the best company to work for in USA.

Here is a screenshot of my Google IG that comes up everytime I open my Web 2.0 aware browser Flock. IG is a good example of a Web 2.0 application although its not the best. My homeland Bangladesh’s PageFlakes (with joint venture from Germany) has been awarded by seomoz.org as the best Personalized start pages of Web 2.0 applications in March 2006 followed by Google IG and Windows Live.

I feel the ground work was done long time back when people started appreciating open source models, projects. The dot.com bubble of late 90s couldn’t reduce the importance of internet in cybercitizen’s life. The web matured from a container of products to a provider of scalable services. Web 2.0 hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web, with technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many-to-many publishing; social software, Web APIs, Web standards and online Web services representing a significant change in web’s use and behavior. As a Web 2.0 world’s cybercitizen, I use the following web services every now-and-then.

• Most of Google services – Search Engine, GMail, Google Map, Blogger, IG, Reader, Docs, Calendar, Orkut, Notebook, Groups, Google Pages/Page Creator etc
• Wikipedia
• del.icio.us
• EBay
• SourceForge.net
• Flickr
• Yelp
• ZoomInfo
• Eventful (formerly EVDB)

While I am yet trying to grasp the effect and scale of Web 2.0, talk on Web 3.0 ius going on where its predicted that Wikepedia will be the ultimate leader! Good luck to readers on that.