The Architecture of Web 2.0

I revisited an article written in 2006 titled ‘Web 2.0 The new internet “boom” doesn’t live up to its name’ by Paul Boutin. Interesting that only a few years ago ‘Web 2.0’ was considered a buzzword by some, while others were wondering what exactly Web 2.0 meant. Tim O’Reilly (who is credited with creating the term Web 2.0) wrote a ‘compact’ definition describing Web 2.0 as:

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”

Software, if continually updated, gets better as more people use it. The more people that create and use accounts with such tools as Delicious or Twitter, the more it makes the network of sharing and collaboration that much more powerful and meaningful. The “architecture of participation” describes the natural foundation in which Web 2.0 is built. Thinking, linking, connecting, interacting, sharing, collaborating (the list of descriptive words is exhaustive). Web 2.0 lives up to its name, and more.

O’Reilly, T. (2005) Web 2.0: Compact definition? Retrieved from http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web-20-compact-definition.html