Google is there. Yahoo is on the way. Microsoft is trying hard to be there but is weighed down by a ton of legacy baggage. What I am talking about is web 2.0, a new perception of the internet characterised by interactivity and personalisation.

The term was popularised late last year by the publisher and open-source advocate Tim O’Reilly, who wrote about “the emergence of what I’ve started to call web 2.0, the internet as platform”. It even became the name of an annual conference. But web 2.0 is not just a conference, it’s an umbrella term, slippery in its detail, but identifying a definite progression from the static web sites that make up web 1.0.

More than anything, web 2.0 expresses a sense that the character of the internet is undergoing a radical shift. There is further evidence for this in the proliferation of new jargon, some of which is even becoming known to non-geeks. Examples are “blog” and “podcast”, both of which count

as web 2.0 technologies.

The technical drivers behind web 2.0 include broadband connections, cheap storage, and connected mobile devices. On the software side, RSS news feeds, Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and XML web services are important. That said, web 2.0 is not so much about specific technologies, but more to do with new ways of exploiting what an always-on global network can do.

A great way to get a feel for web 2.0 is to look at new geographic applications such as Google Earth, Google Maps, and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. They bring together cartography, aerial photography and internet search to create a compelling answer to the question “where?”

Overlaying traditional maps on aerial photographs makes enormous sense, and once you get the idea you will not want to plan your travels without it. It is also interesting to look at the business model. Users of these virtual landscapes are ideal targets for contextual advertising, especially when they start searching for specifics such as hotels and restaurants.

These applications are not really web sites, but they can be web portals. Google Earth aggregates content from many sources, filtered in this case by location along with other criteria.

Web 2.0 doesn’t really exist, it’s an idea, a “meme” in the new jargon. Even so, it is easy to spot the web sites and applications that get it. Web 2.0 sites are portal-friendly, easy to aggregate and easy to link to. This is where representational state transfer (Rest) architecture is valuable – the idea that even on a dynamic site everything should be URL-addressable.

If a site has an API or even just an RSS feed, someone is thinking on the right lines, especially if it is useful for mobile devices as well as the desktop. Another characteristic is simplicity. Web 2.0 sites do everything to accommodate the user. Finally, web 2.0 is about

conversation, which is not just a feedback form, but new ways of interacting with users.

‹ www.web2con.com ‹ tim@itwriting.com