Four of the most commonly used Web 2.0 technologies are blogs, podcasts, social networks and wikis, though a number of other technologies exist.
Blogs. There is nothing fundamentally different in the technology that enables blogging as a blog is very similar to other forms of on-line publishing or web sites. However, the blogger makes his or her choice of template as a pre-existing product instead of having to design the look and feel of the page from basics. In the same way that Desk Top Publishing software revolutionised print publication, where content can be dropped into ready made templates, bloggers can put their content into pages that are designed, published and hosted without the blogger needing to know anything about design, marking-up or other technical matters. One major difference, however, is the possibility of adding comments. This was rather difficult technically to achieve in the early days of the web and became more common with the rise of fora and guest books. However, where a forum was usually moderated, a blog is less likely to be so. This encapsulates the definition of Web 2.0. It isn’t so very different from Web 1.0, just much easier for individuals with no expertise to get involved. From the point of view of internet safety, however, the ease of access and use means that it is a technology that enables the dissemination of information and views that might prove undesirable for the audience and the author.
Podcasting is a way to share multimedia files over the internet for playback on mobile devices or computers. The term podcast can mean either the broadcast itself or the method of delivery. Anyone with access to the internet, a microphone and simple computer can create an audio podcast and make it available online. It is possible to subscribe to podcasts so that they will update automatically on a computer or mobile device. In that way, the subscriber will constantly receive new broadcasts as they are updated and produced. It is possible to find server space to store the file (usually mp3) e.g. ourmedia
http://www.ourmedia.org/ and to create a podcast-enabled rss feed e.g. feedburner (
http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home) for free on the internet.
Wikis are web pages that allow readers to interact and collaborate with others as such pages can be edited or added to by anyone. Perhaps the most well-known example of a wiki is Wikipedia, a collaborative encyclopaedia which now includes more up to date entries than the
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Social Bookmarking allows users to share their user-generated internet favourites or bookmarks. Traditionally users would have a list of favourite websites as part of their own internet browser. Now, social bookmarking allows these lists to be shared easily so that anyone can use them. The content can be classified using tags to make them easier to search and use.
http://del.icio.us (owned by Yahoo) is a good example of social bookmarking and shows users how many other people have saved a particular site.
Photo Sharing is a popular tool which allows users to share photographs with family and friends. The most widely used site is called Flickr
http://www.flickr.com which allows users to post photos and then invite others to view them either individually or as a slide show. Notes and tags can be added to each photo and others can leave comments too.
Video Sharing is a similar tool for sharing videos, with some sites specialised in specific types of video. One of the most popular is youtube
http://www.youtube.com. A site dedicated to teachers for educational use is teachertube
http://www.teachertube.com. Video sharing sites are usually searchable, and allow users to post, comment on, tag and watch videos. A number of communities exist for producing and sharing videos around a common interest. More recently, sites have appeared which allow users to edit their video clips online and add sound, subtitles and so on. Examples of these include: Jumpcut
http://www.jumpcut.com and VideoEgg
http://www.videoegg.com.
Photo Editing and enhancing software is now available online and allows users to improve their photos. Examples of this increasingly popular application are:
Communication tools – the rise of new protocols and technology.Where, it could be argued, the original World Wide Web was made possible by the adoption of the public domain hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and the file transfer protocol (FTP), web 2.0 has seen the development of new protocols – Voice Over Internet (VOIP), as used, for example by Skype and Peer to Peer (P2P) – which demonstrate the use of the web in a freer way. Under web 1.0, internet traffic was directed from “authorities” to individuals, under web 2.0 traffic links individual consumers.
Transfer speeds have significantly improved with the wide adoption of ADSL and other forms of broad-banding as opposed to the original dial-up option through modems and have allowed the use of webcams and data transfer that could only have been dreamt of a few years ago.
File Sharing. One area of concern to owners of copyright is the technology that allows for file sharing between peers (P2P). Indeed the appearance of BitTorrent as a protocol means that the web can be used to locate content that individuals want from the libraries of individuals wherever they may be. Although this in itself constitutes a free exchange of materials, as very often the material may be under copyright, this constitutes a seemingly undesirable use of the web. Furthermore, as during the time of the transfer, the downloader’s machine is being used to upload parts of files to other individuals, it has been suggested that this could constitute risky behaviour as the PC is being used in a way which is not necessarily transparent.
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