You hear the phrase coined a lot – so what is Web 2.0 anyway?  It’s the ability for internet users to interact and collaborate in a social way.  Whenever you’re able to leave a comment or question, upload or download media, or interact with a site, you’re participating in Web 2.0.  Examples of Web 2.0 include social network sites, blogs, forums, wikis and web applications to name a few. 

This is all a development on the ‘earlier web’ in the 1990’s, when users were simply presented content that they could read or view.

So why the progress from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 – when you don’t have one person generating content on your site, but potentially millions, there’s a lot more value.  A website set up as a community offers more to the user; more content, more service and on a social level, more fun.  There’s incentive for the users to come back, often.  All of this creates higher traffic and higher ranking which in turn gives the site owner the ability to generate more income through advertising and other means; a win, win situation for all parties involved.  

Of course the participation on the internet is not just limited to users.  Websites communicate with each other through XML and RSS feeds, sharing site content with each other, making their content easier to find and more accessible to the user.  Likewise, users can choose to join a feed and be given content updates from a site through their internet browser.

Where is this all heading?  Being more and more connected with each other and everything else through the internet from our various mobile and static devices, desk tops, laptops, iphones, cell phones, you name it.  Since the internet itself is such a young invention whose use has already developed at a tremendous rate, we likely won’t need to wait too long to see what lies just ahead of us.