Web 2.0 is about empowering the user

February 8, 2006

See Dave Rogers’ article, Web 2.0: Mistaking the Forest for the Trees? It helped me to make another step in understanding and being able to explain this concept that has been termed “Web 2.0.” Web 2.0 is the application of the reality that most designers and companies have been slow to embrace. The Web is about the user or the reader. It needs to be designed for users and empower him or her to achieve a specific goal or dream with greater ease than has been true in the past. This article was a good compliment to another article that I recently blogged about, Tech.Memeorandum’s Filtering Illustrates Web 2.0’s Most Important Skill. Joshua Porter pointed out that recommendations help users to filter to the good stuff, the content that they want, content that is useful and can be trusted.

Web 2.0 has empowered me to get the content I want without having to go browse for it. Using RSS feeds, I can “subscribe” to a blog or website. My RSS reader goes out and finds the new content and “delivers” it to me. Sites like Flickr empowers me to share photos with others or use other people’s work to enhance my own. Using this blog, I can share with others things that I have learned or tools that I have found helpful. That empowers others as I have been empowered through many of the blogs that I read.

So Web 2.0 is really about creating better user experiences that that users can easily accomplish their end goal whether it would be to find good content, share a picture, connect with their friends, find an apartment, purchase something or become more productive in their work.