Task 3.3

My topic will be the transition from the past to the future of Web 2.0.  Web 2.0 is the second generation of the World Wide Web bringing in new culture of internet.  It focuses on sharing and collaborating information through the online community.  The Web 2.0 has served Web applications towards marking industries, who in turn, farmed the collected data into advertisement means.  The Web has grown a considerable amount by transforming from one-way to two-way communication.

During the beginning of World Wide Web, Web 1.0 had established its place in history with limited options. Vovoci from http://blogvovico.com, created a visual comparison of the Web 1.0 and 2.0:

From looking at the diagram, all users can do was read content with no interactions in Web 1.0. The sites had only sticky content and to name a few it had webmail, chat room, news, and weather. There were editors, but personal sites remained closed and rarely changed. Only a handful of websites changed like CNN. Web 2.0 had a dramatic change, which included user-generated content. It allowed a mass sharing and interaction of content. Also, Web 2.0 had web syndication, allowing two or more companies to provide available material on the other site. It is considered a buzz, which means it contained personal blogging and crowdsourcing.   

However some may disagree on the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, like Tim Berners-Lee who has said, “Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along".[2] Berner-Lee had a different interpretation of Web 1.0. Instead of looking at it from a user interface, he looked at it as the start of connecting people. Web in general has always been about people involvement, so he could not define Web 2.0 as connecting people and collaborating information.

The future of Web 2.0 is scary, yet fascinating to think about. The development of web 2.0 brings about semantic web. According to University College of Dublin (UCD), they defined Semantic Web as extending “the current web to as web data”, adding “machine processable meaning to World Wide Web documents”, and developing “formalizes what is done every day by web users, but makes it possible for machines to do the work”. [3]  UCD describes the semantic web as a linking a data. For example by typing the word, “Mahwah”, the web will locate the weather, area, landmarks, and etc. The web will find all possible information relating to the word, “Mahwah”. Machines will be able to take the jobs of web users. 

In conclusion, the progressive development of Web 2.0 has grown in communication. However some may say the development has always been the same. The web is fascinating and relatively new, but as time continues, it may be hard to determine its possible limits.

[1] http://blog.vovici.com/blog/bid/18085/Web-1-0-vs-Web-2-0
[2] http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/berners-lee_disses_web20.php
[3] http://www.slideshare.net/is20090/future-of-web-20-the-semantic-web - slide 9