What does Web 2.0 mean to us? (part. 1)

The Web 2.0 Expo held at San Francisco is over, the huge event was held to promote new technologies in the World Wide Web (WWW) platforms. Numerous tech blogs and bloggers have covered the news around the expo vast show floor, not to mention there are many web & software developers that participated; from the big guns like Microsoft & Google to small ones.

Some of you who read the title of “Web 2.0” may even say exactly what my ‘relentlessly-questioning’ brother used to say when I asked him about Web 2.0: “What do you mean by Web 2.0?! Is there even Web 1.0 before this?? I don’t see any reason to differentiate any web platforms, web is web; period!”. Although he’s a fine web designer, and also a very good SQL Server & C# programmer; I’m pretty much amazed on how strong his firm believe not to follow on trends that’s currently popular.

And that would probably is the same case as yours, my good fellow Palm Addict readers. As an end-user consumers like me too, who mostly don’t care about technical parts behind the curtain of the web services we often use, we won’t care much about the naming of new platforms made by web developers. So right now, I’m not to discuss the origin of Web 2.0, what is Web 2.0, or what are the technologies behind it (well, may be a little bit okay), etc. I’ll spare you from the long explanation, which eventually you can look them all up by yourselves in the net.

But what really gets into my curiosity when I follow on the Web 2.0 news, is what the new Web 2.0 platform can offer to our mobile life?

Before I can clearly answer that, I need you to understand that most of the current web services you’re using right now are already inside the Web 2.0 platform circle. For quick examples; Google search engine & Gmail, these are a fine example on extensive use of advanced database management that can be categorized into Web 2.0 technology. “Google isn't just a collection of software tools, it's a specialized database. Without the data, the tools are useless; without the software, the data is unmanageable” (quoted from O’Reilly).

Tagging files using freely chosen keywords, blogging, RSS feeds & permalink are all the fruits from harnessing Web 2.0 features. Where the audience has become the decider of what’s important, “the wisdom of crowds” as what James Suriowecki said, has produce PageRank of results than can be better than an individual expert analytical point of view.

Another key feature of Web 2.0 also demonstrated by BitTorrent, where the more people share the same files will mean the whole community will get better service. And the main server to host the files is no longer needed; downloaders have become the servers needed to host the files.

The limitation from previous limited web platforms, from only able in one way communication; now has been changed greatly. Using the Web 2.0 new technologies, two devices can communicate with each other; they not only consume data but also reporting back. Along with time, the number of devices that can be joined into the platform is growing rapidly. Thus resulting into what nowadays they called it “Enterprise Mashups”, it’s a lightweight applications that combine data from two or more sources to create something more valuable than the sum of their parts. It’s almost like P2P feature that I explained on BitTorrent above, companies are taking advantage from the richness of the shared data over unlimited vast networks.

to be continue to part. 2 …..

[blogged with my Treo 750v]