What is Web 2.0? I don't know!

After reading O'Reilly's article, I still don't think I can answer his title question. As it was written in 2005, I would like to see what he would say about internet today, but perhaps I should get more background and simple information before I go comparing. His opening paragraph talks about the 'bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001' and I had no idea what he was talking about. Considering I was almost ten years old, I was more concerned with neopets than major companies, and so I googled it. Wikipedia tells me that The "dot-com bubble" was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 (with a climax on March 10, 2000 with the NASDAQ peaking at 5132.52) during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more recent Internet sector and related fields. The period was marked by the founding (and, in many cases, spectacular failure) of a group of new Internet-based companies commonly referred to as dot-coms. Companies were seeing their stock prices shoot up if they simply added an "e-" prefix to their name and/or a ".com" to the end. This answer somewhat helps, but I guess my main uncertainty is how NASDAQ or any other dot-com company can fall so quickly in stocks. I understand the basics of the stock market, like how I would invest in it and be able to profit, but as to how it can fall rapidly and how in 2008 everything went to shit, I have no clue. From what I gather in the article, this 'dot-com bubble burst' is what caused some of the companies to fall out of business and make way for new ones, as well as others to grow and learn and become what they are today. Hopefully this is correct - if not I need even more help than I thought.

What I did find interesting were the changes that did occur. His visual Web 1.0/Web 2.0 comparison was neat - seeing how the programs we use today came from things I personally have mostly forgotten about was a cool flashback. Britannica Online and mp3.com are so old, but without them I do not think I could function, for they have given me two amazing things: Wikipedia and online music. THANK GOD.

From a lot of the rest of the article, what I have gathered is that Web 2.0 is very much user based - focused on the general public and what they have to offer back to the internet. RSS feeds, the blogging world, even Amazon's data management that encourages user input and user relevant results, all of these reflect the focus on the community that uses the internet rather than the companies that run it. The ability to collect information, organize it, and reflect it back so that more people can continue the process is what makes the internet so constantly changing and evolving. Eric Raymond's statement that 'with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow' speaks a lot for what the internet has to offer now - thousands of user run and user supported programs and sites that serve to enhance our lives. As someone who is terrible with directions, I can't imagine going to a trip without MapQuest directions or a gps, but these are relatively new programs that are being updated incredibly frequently.

One of the things I love about my iPod is that even though I got it almost two years ago, it is still being updated, enhancing, becoming a better product. I was just recently given the ability to add a background image to the home screen, and while this is a fairly trivial update, it is a solid reflection of how eliminating software release cycles that only apply to some products (or create new ones entirely) or are incredibly lengthy between updates can vastly improve how we function. The constant updating and alterations made from user given feedback not only makes software generated to how the public uses it, but also creates an ease with which to do so.

The specifics and amount of detail that went in to this article made it very interesting, but I fear that a lot of it went over my head. It did, however, bring up many points that I had not previously considered and made me appreciate the internet we have that much more, and look forward to the advancements yet to come.

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