Web 2.0 and us

Web 2.0. What is it? Who is it? Who uses it? These are just some of the commonly asked questions these days, and beginning to be asked more in the world of business. What some people don't understand is that we are Web 2.0 and we are the key users in it. Web 2.0 relies on it's users to come together to fully function. Before Web 2.0, the internet was just many isolated pages full of information. Now, they are all connected and this I believe is largely down to mash-ups.

( And I don't mean the mash-ups that are so popular now because of the songs released in the popular TV show 'Glee'!) but the ones associated with e-business. Application mash-ups and the musical ones are quite similar though as both are readily available to be changed, to be fused together to create a better finished product. Mash-ups are fast becoming one of the most important applications available both offline and online. What mash-ups can do for us are create applications that will become available and useful for everyone, both the users and for businesses to use for further usage.

These show why Miscosoft bought a small stake in the social networking site Facebook, because a lot of the features used in social networking sites can contribute to further mash-ups such as 'Eventful' http://eventful.com/ and 'Technorati' http://technorati.com/ as these applications are both very useful in the internet, even being used in this blog. Many believe that Facebook could one day become so powerful that it in turn could become an operating system, or lead to creation of a new one, because of it's popularity and because of the features available. Google, who don't want Miscrosoft to have control of the online world, created their own social networking site, Google Buzz in an attempt to keep some of the market share.

Web 2.0 is very important but it is up to us, the users, to keep it expanding and growing, but also to the creation of many new mash-ups and applications.