Coined only 3 years ago by O'Reilly Media, Web 2.0 is quickly becoming a trend in internet today, but many people still don't know what it really means. Its name suggests that it's an upgrade from the original Web 1.0. As such, Web 2.0 would signal the next generation of the internet. But what is the meaning and effect of Web 2.0? This article is aimed to provide a broad overview of Web 2.0, what it is, how it was born, and how you can recognize it.

What Web 2.0 means?

Web 2.0 is changing the entire experience of internet surfing. With Web 2.0, you are no longer passively reading through pages and clicking to other pages. Instead, you are contributing with each click to modify search engines results with your own vocabulary, helping to improve your own and others future online experience, and communicating with, sharing with, and teaching others surfers throughout the world. Web 2.0 is still quite new, but it promises to be the next big generation in internet communications. The Internet technology has helped to achieve our level of surfing experience with web 2.0 as improved connection speed allow us to watch video listen to audio files and enjoy a more graphic environement. In the future is expected more levels of interaction between surfers and website owners, this leading to let the visitors to choose what is relevant to them and in turn, webmasters will have to strive to meet the new demands of more informed visitors. A new promising scenario.

The phrase "Web 2.0" was initially coined by O'Reilly Media, working with Media Live International, when naming a series of internet conferences in 2004. Since then, the phrase Web 2.0 has been adopted by developers and marketers alike. The expert Tim O'Reilly has said that web 2.0 includes all applications, using the internet as a platform, that improves in quality and content as more people use them. In other words, web 2.0 is "the intelligent web," where the internet and the collective intelligence combine.

The levels of Web 2.0 according the level of interaction

There are 4 levels according to the level of human interaction as follows:

Level 3. Applications can only be used with an internet connection, and they are nothing without the human-driven network. These applications require human participation to improve in content and quality. Level 3 applications include the well known eBay, which would of course be useless without people offering goods and other people to bid on those goods. Craigslist for much the same reason as eBay; means nothing without human interaction. Wikipedia, where readers are responsible for editing content if they know it is incorrect or outdated. Also a member of Level 3 is the application del.icio.us, where bloggers can increase traffic by submitting their blogs for other readers to comment on and tag based on their own vocabulary. Del.icio.us is setting a new standard for searching as visitors determine new methods of searching. This is expected to help the internet community in general to search more effectively and productively.

Level 2 applications. They are different from level 3 because they are operable without an internet connection, but their greatest advantages are realized online. For example, Flickr, a photo sharing database which is improved by the photos that are uploaded by the internet community. Without the internet, Flickr can still be used, but it quickly stagnates if no new photos are uploaded.

Level 1 applications. They are similar to level 2, but gain less in quality by going online. Such sites include Apple iTunes, where you can listen to music offline, but can only purchase new songs by going online. Again, like with level 2 application, the means of updating is dependent on an internet connection.

Finally, Level 0 applications work as well offline as online. These applications are the "least Web 2.0 of all." Some of these applications include MapQuest, which readers do not contribute to, but rather use only for passive reference. Similarly, Yahoo! Local and Google Maps are also level 0

In conclusion, Web 1.0 is now thought of as "The Web as Information Source," whereas web 2.0 is thought of as "The Web as Networking Platform.". Among the Web 2.0 sites, we find the so called social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Stumble Upon, Digg, etc, and the social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Answers and more.

As Social Networking sites grow in numbers and visitors, savvy marketers have managed to pick a share of this enormous traffic for their marketing efforts. Marketing in Social Networking sites is rather tricky, therefore, is necessary to learn how to convey targeted traffic for every particular site. This topic will be addressed in another article.

The author is an irrigation engineer turned into a full time internet marketer. Want to learn more about Web 2.0 and how you can use this new technology on your marketing efforts? For a limited time, I have made available a suite of ebooks and resources for a FREE download at this link: http://www.marketingsoftstore.com/web2.0/socialtoolkit.html