WHAT IS WEB 2.0?

Wikipedia says WEB 2.0 is:

A perceived second generation of web development and design, that aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web

In other more simplistic words, WEB 2.0 is the successor to WEB 1.0 where the contributors were highly outnumbered by the viewers. The cost and facilities to create personalised content online was just not available as it is today. WEB 2.0 describes the transition from an Internet where content is owned and controlled by contributors to an Internet where content is controlled, downloaded and uploaded by everyone for everyone.

Personalised content is generally as simple as creating a small profile with a Username, Password and Email address (sometimes even easier). Blogs, social networking (Facebook/MySpace etc.) and the Wikipedia phenomenon are just simple examples of WEB 2.0 applications. WEB 2.0 is characterised by customisation and user input. These sites are relatively useless without a userbase.