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When the Internet experienced the “bubble,” or “dot com bust” in 2001, some thought that the digital sky was falling. Indeed, for Internet marketers it was a time of great uncertainty and chaos. To some degree, there will always be a gentle flow of chaos that orders itself on the Internet. You simply cannot have millions of ideas and people attached to them colliding in digital space without some unordered processes that seemingly without intervention right themselves. This level of uncertainty and the “dot com bust” let many to conclude that the World Wide Web was just a flash-in-the-pan idea that had been over-hyped and that the crash was indisputable proof of that fact.

Not everyone failed during the crash, however, but the survivors had distinctive commonalities. Furthermore, there were those who maintained that the Internet was more important than ever and had the potential to revolutionize the way we live.

In 2004, Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media) met with Dale Dougherty of Media Live International. They discussed ways of making the Internet more user-friendly, engaging, and interactive. Out of that meeting came the term “Web 2.0.” O’Reilly defines “Web 2.0” as the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Put more simply, “Web 2.0” is an upgrade to the Internet experience that would improve its underlying structures and abilities.

New technologies such as blogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts and RSS feeds are just a few of the technologies that are helping to shape and direct Web 2.0. But there have been other noticeable dynamic changes. Some of the more obvious difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are: 1) DoubleClick was replaced by Google AdSense as the PPC king, 2) Britannica Online—although still a major player—was replaced in its dominance by start-up Wikipedia, 3) Blogs (web logs) quickly replaced the Personal Web Page, 4) Content Management Systems (CMS—often complicated administrative systems based on Perl scripts) were replaced by Wikis, and 5) Internet Directories were replaced by Tagging (images, information, resources).

You will note almost immediately a major shift from the “establishment controlled” era of Web 1.0 to that of “user control, creation, and contribution” common of Web 2.0 experiences today.

That is a huge difference and the one that is making Web 2.0 more and more user friendly not to mention more and more profitable for just average people. You might even call it a power shift of seismic proportions. When the Internet began, very few individuals controlled the content available to the average user. Nearly every destination on the WWW was inside a wall garden such as CompuServe, Prodigy Yahoo’s GeoCities, and America Online. These archaic edifices still exist in updated fashion in the form of systems such as Apple’s iTunes and Apps. Although today they offer more garden, so to speak, they are the same closed type of ecosystem of the Internet from 20 years ago.

The exciting part of the Internet experience today is that anybody with an idea, a few dollars, and just a little know-how can build a Web 2.0 website that is completely interactive and, if they want, turn it into a profitable enterprise. The technology is available, user-friendly, and relatively inexpensive or even free. If your website is still a collection of static web pages, you can make them more engaging and interactive by adding features like blogs and forums. Those websites who continue be ‘old hat’ are falling further and further behind and no longer garner much web traffic. They have become the old tattered reference books on the shelves of a library that no one visits any more.

1freereports.com exists to help people connect their ideas with digital solutions available through Web 2.0 technologies. Our free reports are available to get anyone started or keep seasoned professionals current with prevailing trends. We invite you to browse our free reports collections, as well as, our premium products and start your Web 2.0 journey today.

Tags: America Online, AOL, bloggers, blogging, CompuServe, entrepreneurs, facebook, internet marketers, Internet marketing, linkedin, marketing, mediapreneurs, networking, online business, pinterest, Prodigy, SEO, social media, twitter, walled garden, wealth building, Web 2.0, wiki, wikis

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 14th, 2012 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.