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What is Web 2.0?

by KimboJim
8 replies
I'm not a newbie Internet marketer, but this is a newbie question.

What is a Web 2.0 site? I keep seeing people say that Squidoo and HubPages are Web 2.0, but I always thought they were article directories. What exactly is Web 2.0?

Thanks for clearing this up for me.
#web
  • Profile picture of the author Limekwat
    Getting down to the absolute most basic definition of web 2.0 it's websites that allow for user interaction, collaboration, user generated content etc. Basically giving the user or customer control over the content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by KimboJim View Post

    What exactly is Web 2.0?
    It's non-specific "marketing-speak" - a vague-ish term which different people use in quite widely differing ways (each typically imagining that everyone else will share their concept of it without the recognition of any ambiguity ever arising at all).

    Don't drive yourself mad trying to work out exactly what it means, because it has no "fully objective meaning", in other words, let alone a "fully shared meaning".

    By the time we work it out, people will probably be asking what "Web 3.0" means ...
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  • Profile picture of the author PhiladelphiaSeo
    Limekwat hit it right on the head. Web 2.0 allows 2 way communication between you (Webmaster) and your customer or reader. It allows 2 way interaction. Web 1.0 was the old style websites. Just website and no communication.
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  • Profile picture of the author cldnails
    I always considered WEB 2.0 websites to be any site built in the mid 2000's that utilized bubbly buttons with glossy finishes or an excessive use of drop shadow.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by cldnails View Post

      I always considered WEB 2.0 websites to be any site built in the mid 2000's that utilized bubbly buttons with glossy finishes or an excessive use of drop shadow.
      This is closer to how I've always thought of them.

      The comments above about "interaction" and "collaboration" surprise me greatly.

      The forum's full of full of posts mentioning "Web 2.0 sites like xxxyyyzzz" and the "xxxyyyzzz" sites referenced in those comments comprise vastly different types of sites with entirely different structures, purposes, presentations, functions, styles and so on. Huge numbers of people certainly consider "Blogspot blogs" to be "Web 2.0 sites" and I'm unaware of anything intrinsically "interactive" or "collaborative" about them. :confused:

      Call me a skepchick, but I always imagine that quite a lot of people instinctively think of "Web 2.0 sites" as being "Sites that can easily rank well without you having to do very much", but I suspect that many of those are people whose perception of "page ranks" is a little confused (e.g. they don't always necessarily appreciate that it's pages that have page rank, rather than "sites").

      I may be doing large numbers of people a grave injustice with my skepchickery, there, of course: it wouldn't be the first time.

      Originally Posted by KimboJim View Post

      I keep seeing people say that Squidoo and HubPages are Web 2.0, but I always thought they were article directories.
      No - they're definitely not article directories. No ambiguity, interpretation or subjectivity at all, there!

      An "article directory" is a depository of content freely available for syndication by webmasters and ezine publishers (subject to the TOS of each individual directory). It's "content you can take and re-publish on your own site or in your own ezine", in other words, and that's what it's there for. This certainly doesn't apply to the article content on Squidoo and HubPages sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    The bubbly buttons (and the neon blue+lime green colours) are/were just some minor appearance characteristics of whatever web 2.0 is.

    The thing is nobody ever defined what the web 1.0 was... so the 2.0 came out of the blue

    On a bit more serious note: probably, the interactivity and the 2-way/multiple way communication, plus user-generated content were the most important novelties in what became to be known as web 2.0.

    The classic (1.0?) web sites were like the traditional media: they (i.e. newspaper, TV/radio station) feed you with their content - and you don't have any way to interact with them.

    Interactivity: think blog (the good ones) with tens or hundreds of comments on a post by real readers/followers.

    User-generated content: think YouTube, Flickr...

    Communication: besides blogs think social networking sites - Linkedin, Facebook

    Of course, many times there is an overlap: social networking site providing means of communication AND building on user-generated content etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author KimboJim
    OK, thanks a lot everyone for the help with this. I have a much better picture of it now.
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