The Birth & Growth
of Web 2.0
COM 415-Fall II
Ashley Velasco (Prince)
Web 2.0 is more than just a phrase, or
new web trend it is a way of life for now for most
users and companies now a days. It is a
compilation of many different technologies that
many of us take for granted. Many of us can not
imagine a world without YouTube, Facebook or
Google. These are just a few of the web
technologies that have evolved to make Web 2.0
so successful. There are many other elements that
help make up this elaborate and extensive web
environment.
Web 1.0
vs. Web 2.0
Search Engines
 Users can now basically find anything they want
due to growth of search engines like Google,
Yahoo and Ask.
 Search engines can lead users to social
networks, blog sites, educational websites,
personal websites, etc.
 Now these search engines even have image
viewing, current news and even widgets for the
user to utilize.
 Recently, location-based searches have become
increasingly popular. Based on the users IP
address or GPS location the results from the
search will be near the users location.
 Due to PageRank, results are returned to the
user based on user popularity. Higher ranking
pages show up closer to the top of the page.
User Generated
Content Sites
 User generated content plays a huge part in
the internet and all of the media and
information that can be found online.
 Internet users can get on many websites and
contribute their own input or media.
 Users can even make purchases online or list
their own items to be bought by other users.
 It is also pretty convenient that users can use
the internet to located apartment vacancies,
homes for sale and even find adopt a pet.
 A big trend online now is that job seekers and
potential employers can now post job, career
and internship openings.
Blogging Sites
 Blogging sites are the biggest phenomenon that
has arrived from Web 2.0.
 Blogs are used by company executives to raise
morale to their employees, celebrities to give
the average person an insight to their life from
day-to-day, and for anyone that wants to take
the time to create and update their entries.
 Users can find blogs on pretty much any topic.
They can be used as educational sources or as
a way to simply keep up with someone’s
personal life.
 In these blogs, users can add links to other
pages, pictures or even videos.
 A neat feature is the ability to leave comments
on these blog sites.
Social Networks
 Social networks have become a huge hit for all
internet users in the past few years.
 Websites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter
have become highly-sought after websites.
 MySpace and Facebook give users a way to
keep in touch with friends, families and
potentially make new friendships.
 These websites also allow for photo sharing,
video blogging and even music playing.
 Twitter is a website that has really grown in
popularity where users can follow the status
updates of friends, celebrities and even
politicians.
Social Media
 Social media has become increasingly popular
among web users of all ages.
 The big talked about page is YouTube where
users can look up videos from instructional,
education, music, comedy or even news.
 There is also websites like Photobucket where
users can find pictures that other users have
uploaded and use the link to post them on
their page. They can even make an account and
upload their own pictures.
 Since Apple’s IPod has become some popular
some users even utilize the podcast feature
available. Podcasts are like radio talk shows.
 All of these websites like Facebook and EBay
are possible due to user generated content.
Location-Based
Services
 A new feature from Web 2.0 is the use of
location-based services.
 GPS, or global positioning systems, are now a
very common object found in cars and even on
cell phones.
 With GPS, websites like Google Maps &
MapQuest have really taken off in the use by
users everywhere.You can get online and look
up driving directions, find the location of a
place on the map and even see a “street level”
view of it so, you know what it looks like.
 Using the users IP address or GPS itself, search
results will be brought up that are closest to
the user’s current position.
New User Technology
 Not only has the actual interface changed with
Web 2.0 but now it is more user-friendly.
Thanks to AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript
and XML, websites have more advanced
interfaces called GUIs.
 AJAX makes the web pages more responsive
and faster all around by being able to update a
certain part of the page instead of waiting for
the entire page to load like in the past.
 APIs, or application programming interfaces,
give the user the ability to access other
services and external databases.
 With the help of mashups and widgets, more
users are being introduced to these APIs.
Widgets are added to page to personalize or
add reference points about weather, time, etc.
Mashups include sites that combine the use of
two sources to provide information or services
for the user.
Beyond Web 2.0


Like all technologies, the web is
slowly evolving to bigger and
better things. A lot of talk is going
around to what the next web
trends will be released. Some of
them include the following items:
 Semantic web—which is
basically the changing of the
web into a language that all
Personalization—use of
widgets, mashups and other computers can read.
objects to contextualize  Artificial intelligence—which
the web based on the user. will include the attempt to
Mobility—gives all users the extract meaning from the way
ability to access the web at users search.
all time from everywhere.