We explain what Web 2.0 is and what is the origin of this term. Also, the different tools it uses.
What is Web 2.0?
When we speak of Web 2.0 or the Social Web, we refer to a model of websites that facilitate the transmission of information, interoperability and collaboration between its users, through a design focused on your needs, rather than those of the business. In other words, it is a trend in the Internet that advocates a more interactive network, less one-sided, in which users do not occupy a merely passive role.
Web 2.0 is a step forward in the evolution of the Internet, to incorporate the user as an active agent in its operation, and not as a mere client or recipient of the information. This happens through dynamic websites, in which the user is allowed to interact, generate content, or be part of virtual communities.
The term originated in 2004, a product of Tim O'Reilly's lecture on the future of the Internet, and plays with the usual name for Software (1.0, 1.1., 1.2, 2.0, etc.) as they are updated and improved. However, it does not really refer to a technical improvement of the net, as in a different way of understanding it.
Some examples of Web 2.0 pages are the social networks, wiki, internet sales pages or other collaborative projects in which users must generate content and not simply consume it.
All of them have in common a disposition towards interactivity and the construction of a sense of community between people who may be strangers or thousands of miles apart.
Web 2.0 tools
The 2.0 tools are those programs or websites available to carry out certain functions within the Internet, and that can be applied to other vital aspects, such as the learning wave teaching. Some examples of this are:
- Social networks. Virtual communities in which remote people can communicate in real time in writing (chat), they can have their information publicly and connect with other people who share their interests, their history or their desires (even romantic).
- The Wikis. Sites with free access to information through the voluntary accumulation of knowledge, in the manner of the old encyclopedias, but this time organized in a collaborative way: each user contributes their grain of sand.
- Blogs. One-person or group pages that serve as a newspaper, publication or literary text, to share various ways of text and storytelling (including audiovisual) using the tools of the Internet and also receivingfeedback of readers or followers.
- Video hosting sites. The best known of them is YouTube, a platform where users can upload various audiovisual content and share their appreciations, comments and tastes in the matter, or also become announcers and commentators called “youtubers”.
- Online sales pages. Services not only of sale, but of exchange of opinions between buyers and contact with companies that offer goods or services. The best known of all are Amazon and eBay.
- Podcasts. Radio has not died, but rather exists on web 2.0, under the podcast format: broadcasts stored online that allow the user to listen to them whenever and wherever they want, often offering knowledge, tutorials or simply entertainment programs.
- Online presentations. Inspired by the program PowerpointThese pages offer presentation preparation services, for exhibition purposes for companies, schools and universities, allowing the use of the audiovisual and multimedia potential of the Internet in various daily environments.
- Conceptual and mental maps. Another popular service on Web 2.0, especially for study purposes: pages that offer the ability to compile online flowcharts, conceptual maps and others techniques learning or visual explanation of content. Some well-known ones are Mindmeister, Coggle.it and Mindomo.