Web 2.0

The buzz word "Web 2.0" is been arround in the internet from a long time now. Even i was surprized by the popularity it is attaining. Today i thought about finding out what is it ? and why does it generate this much hype ? And i found the answer which a newbie had to know.

Web 2.0 generally refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that let people collaborate, and share information online. Confusing ? Ok we go back to find the other old generation of World Wide Web : first came the static web page ya in the mid 90's build using HTML and other related technologies. Then came more vibrant(as i thought it was, before web 2.0) and dynamic pages with the help of CSS(cascaded style sheet) and DOM(document object model). And now the google map, gmail, flickr where among the first to introduce so called Web 2.0 technologies. The web 2.0 is more vibrant then its old counter part. Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs, Ajax, HTML, XML. Now the question is what is this AJAX ??

Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, or its acronym, AJAX, is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire Web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. Its a combination of technologies like :XHTML/HTML, CSS, DOM, XML. Some of the example of what AJAX can do are google map, flickr etc. If you want to know more about AJAX click here or click here.

Surely Web 2.0 and these technologies like AJAX is really good when it comes to the user prospective. The usage of internet sites get easier and really user friendly.
Some of the site which had implemented these web 2.0 are:
http://www.gmail.com
http://del.icio.us
http://www.maps.google.com
http://www.flickr.com
.... there are lots more. and lots more to come...