WEB 2.0

This term Web 2.0 has been widely spreaded around the internet and there is much confusion as to what it is and what it stands for.

Web 2.0 is not a specific software or some registered trademark of Microsoft or Google, but a buzzword describing a collection of approaches to using the net in new and very innovative ways.

Web 2.0 refers to technologies that allow data to become independent of the person who produced it or the site it originated on. It deals with how information can be broken up into units that flow freely from one site to another, often in ways the producer did not foresee or intend.
The Web 2.0 paradigm allows net users to pull information from a variety of sites simultaneously and deliver it on their own site to achieve new purposes.
But it is not a world of stealing others’ work or pirating information for one’s own gain. Instead, Web 2.0 is a product of the open source, sharing notions the internet was founded on, and makes data more connected. This allows new information and business opportunities to be built upon the shoulders of the information that came before.

Web 2.0 lets data act as its own entity, which can be changed, altered or remixed by anyone for any specific purpose. When data is an entity, the net moves from a collection of websites to a true web of sites that can interact and process information collectively. This evolutionary re-mixing creates many new business opportunities for both creators, as well as for consumers, making possible the creation of many new, innovative and highly useful services.

Reference:
Robin Good. Web 2.0. 10 March, 2008.
http://www.masternewmedia.org/web_2/web_2_examples/web2_examples_of_services_and_applications_20051006.htm