Jeff Bridgforth :: Webcraftsman

Crafting Web sites since 1999

I am a Web designer passionate about creating elegant, inspiring, and usable Web experiences that connect with an audience and fulfull business objectives.

Web 2.0 in my own words

September 26, 2005

I was chal­lenged to put Web 2.0 into an ele­va­tor pitch. This is my attempt to process what I have learned and try to pass it along. This was a help­ful exercise.

From what I under­stand, a big part of Web 2.0 is about mak­ing infor­ma­tion acces­si­ble. I have heard the term “con­tent silo” kicked around with a project here at Cam­pus Cru­sade. A con­tent silo means that only I can access a data­base or resource doc­u­ments because they are only con­tained in my “web.”

Google and Flikr are using new trends to make the infor­ma­tion in their data­bases acces­si­ble to oth­ers so that oth­ers can take what they have cre­ated and use it for another appli­ca­tion. An exam­ple would be Google Maps. Oth­ers have used the infor­ma­tion for the “maps” and built another inter­face appli­ca­tion that helps peo­ple find hous­ing, find cheap gasor map the move­ment of hurricanes.

RSS is mak­ing infor­ma­tion acces­si­ble in that I do not have to browse to find infor­ma­tion that I want but I can “sub­scribe” and that info comes to me. RSS is what makes pod­cast­ing dif­fer­ent from just post­ing an mp3 on a website.

So in a nut­shell, I under­stand Web 2.0 to be about mak­ing infor­ma­tion more acces­si­ble, both for users and developers.

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