WEB 2.0

Wide-scale use of the Internet is a fairly new phenomenon in today’s society, but already the technology has grown by leaps and bounds. Today’s Internet is quite different from the one surfed just fifteen short years ago. Today there’s much more content, customization, and use of broadband connections. What seemed nearly impossible fifteen years ago is now being realized because of emerging technology that allows people all over  the world to stream videos, view pictures, customize their homepages, and see only the news stories they want.

New technologies that allow for this customization and change on the Web are often referred to as Web 2.0. There is no specific idea or set of technologies that is considered “Web 2.0.” The terms is meant to indicate a broad range of movements within the web community to online applications and websites that are customizable, user-friendly, and provide far more function that previously thought possible. The term “Web 2.0” has often been thought of as a useless buzz word by some cynics within the industry; however, this term is loosely used in this chapter to describe the exciting, new possibilities that are available online, both for the marketer and the average user.