Apparently, the techno-world is ready for “Web 2.0”.
What is Web 2.0?
“Like a child progressing into adolescence, the Web has entered a new era of sophistication. We used to spend most of our time just surfing the Internet–reading and downloading whatever we could find. Nowadays we’re more likely to create waves ourselves by sharing our opinions, photos, and home videos; collaborating by text, voice, and video; or adding our own data to maps that span the globe.”
It’s a more interactive, faster-running version of the internet.
“Applications that run in a browser are now almost as speedy as those installed on PCs, thanks to new programming tools that combine recent Web technologies, like Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Ruby on Rails, with Java and other standbys. These technologies allow more processing to occur on users’ local PCs, meaning fewer trips back and forth to Web servers.”
“And browser-based programs can now interact more closely with Web sites. Google, Amazon, and other big sites let anyone create services that incorporate their data.”
Sounds too good to be true? Maybe. At least according to Stephen Manes of PCWorld. He writes in his article, “Web 2.0? First, Let’s Get Web 1.0 Right!” that:
“‘Web 2.0’ is a promising idea–and there are plenty of sites that reflect its innovations in this issue’s cover story, ‘New, Improved Web.’ But you know what I want to see this ‘new’ Web deliver to prove the brilliance of the concept? Fixes for what Web 1.0 keeps doing wrong.”
In my opinion though, he’s just basically wining about doing too much work on the internet. Some things I agree with, like how forms should remember what you wrote in the fields even after hitting the back button, but for the most part, I think he’s just lazy. But that’s only my opinion.