Introduction

Web 2.0, a phrase is a cluster term for the new phase of World Wide Web, which was coined by O’Reilly and Media live International in 2003 and popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004. There is no certain definition of Web 2.0, even though; it stands for the transformation of the web into a full-fledged computing platform.

Web 2.0 is not a modified version of World Wide Web, but it is a different way to utilize Internet into web platform like weblogs, social book marking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social networking web, Web APIs, Web standards and online service provider. It is like open sourcing and genuine interactivity in which user can upload anything, download anything and can use the content according to its own wish. There is no restriction of more or less measure of content, uploading and downloading. All these are absolutely free.

According to ‘O’Reilly, the inventor of Web 2.0, “Web
2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry
caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an
attempt to understand the rules for success on that new
platform”. So Web 2.0 is a new way of business via
Internet. It’s really a new business tactic that is being
used on the mass level across the world. The success of
‘YouTube’, ‘Orkut’, ‘MySpace’, ‘Google’, ‘live’, ‘Wikipedia’
and many more websites are the biggest examples of
Web 2.0.

Definitions and Components

As we have already mentioned that Web 2.0 has not
any specific definition. Many users have defined its in
their own way. According to Wikipedia, “Web 2.0 is a
term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of
the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a
full-fledged computing platform serving web applications
to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected
to replace desktop computing applications for many
purposes.”
On the other hand, according to Wall Street Technology
powered by CMP ‘United Business Media’, the coinventor
of Web 2.0, “Web 2.0 refers to Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) that use the Internet as a platform to create interactive user interfaces that resemble PCbased applications. Typically, RIAs emphasize online collaboration among users.”

Several supporters of Web 2.0 have defined it according to their uses, observations and experiences, but in brief, we can say that:

• Web 2.0 is a conversion of websites from unique information structure having the sources of content and functionality. That’s why being a computing platforms it
serves web applications to end-users.

• Web 2.0 is a new way of organizing and categorizing of
the content, audio, video, pictures and movies highly
stressing to the growth of the economic value of the
Web.
• Tim O’Reilly, the father of Web 2.0 along with his colleague John Battelle summarized the key principles
Web 2.0 applications in 2005. According to them:
• The web as a platform
• Data as the driving force
• Network effects created by an architecture of participation
• Innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed
by pulling together features from distributed, independent
developers (a kind of “open source” development)
• Lightweight business models enabled by content and
service syndication
• The end of the software adoption cycle (“the perpetual
beta”)
• Software above the level of a single device, leveraging
the power of the “Long Tail”
• Ease of picking-up by early adopters

Web 2.0 includes two major model move, one is ‘user generated content’ and other is ‘thin client computing’.

User Generated Content

User generated contents refer to those content which user can upload it on the Web 2.0 based software especially social networking sites in the form of text, audio, video, pictures, movies and many more on the low level or the mass level itself. The advantage of this move is the content can spread very rapidly on the mass level and truly talented authors, artists, musicians and moviemakers can gain an audience quickly and easily that was not so easy in the past. ‘Orkut’, ‘YouTube’, ‘Wikipedia’ and blogs are the best examples of User generated Content Paradigm.

Thin Client Computing

Data and applications are stored on Web servers, and a user can access these from any computer through a Web browser. This is known as thin client computing. Though, it is not a new concept for the Internet, but in Web 2.0 user can access any data from the massive server through Browsers. Browsers interpret scripts in such a way, that the data are accessed extremely quick no matter which hardware or software environment they reside in. ‘Google’, ‘Live’, ‘Yahoo’ and ‘msn’ is the best examples of thin client computing.