Over the past three years, Internet web sites have been evolving into a series of platforms organizing content and communications among individuals and organizations for the purpose of social networking. Sites like MySpace, YouTube and Wikipedia have shifted online activities from “browsing” to collaborating, interacting and personalizing. MySpace boasts over 100 million accounts, YouTube serves an average of 100 million video streams per day and Wikipedia contains over 1.7 million articles in English edited by users from all over the world. As a result, web design and organizational thinking in this new era needs to be more focused on building event-driven experiences, rather than simply designing information silos ammended with numerous hyperlinks. But how do consumers and businesses keep up with these changes and more importantly how do they exploit the new technologies in ways that benefit customers, employees, and even their industry? This issue of Educational Update is designed for that very purpose.

WEB 2.0 Technologies
Web 2.0 is the collection of server-based solutions that have allowed the web to become a publishing platform. Instead of the traditional one-way form of web authoring, these solutions invite all Internet users to share, collaborate, and contribute in the process of website development. Users now have an increased ability to contribute text, bookmarks, photos, audio, videos and more to many different websites. This ease of access to web content alters the way users interact with the new world wide web. Users can now build an online social network where community members contribute content, share resources, collaborate on the agenda and determine the direction of the website. How many of the sites listed below do you utilize or even recognize? While the list of 31 sites is only a sample, the technologies being highlighted cover the gamut of what is happening with Web 2.0.

After browsing a few of these sites, one quickly realizes that Web 2.0 sites contain a lot more than just text and photos. Each site is facilitating a unique kind of user experience. Gone are the days when you browse and read text stories. Today, you register and participate in adding content and information to a site. Then, you follow-up with release permissions and publish your content for others to see, hear, and/or utilize in their own sites via RSS or direct embedding. In this way, the cumulative experiences of all who participate result in a much greater assembly of resources than any one organization or individual would ever be able to accomplish.

Combining the power of many and the dynamic updating that is possible with RSS has completely transformed the web landscape. Thus, the use of Web 2.0 technologies creates the potential for building community through an online interface.

Download pdf Web 2.0: Building Online Communities Using Social Networking Technologies