Understanding Web 2.0

Abstract

Web 2.0, the second phase in the Web's evolution, is attracting the attention of IT professionals, businesses, and Web users. Web 2.0 is also called the wisdom Web, people-centric Web, participative Web, and read/write Web. Web 2.0 harnesses the Web in a more interactive and collaborative manner, emphasizing peers' social interaction and collective intelligence, and presents new opportunities for leveraging the Web and engaging its users more effectively. Within the last two to three years, Web 2.0, ignited by successful Web 2.0 based social applications such as MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube, has been forging new applications that were previously unimaginable.

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34 IT Pro July ❘August 2007
SECOND-GENERATION
WEB TECHNOLOGIES
Understanding
Web 2.0
San Murugesan
Web 2.0, the second phase in the
Web’s evolution, is attracting the
attention of IT professionals,busi-
nesses, and Web users.Web 2.0 is
also called the wisdom Web, people-centric Web,
participative Web, and read/write Web. Web 2.0
harnesses the Web in a more interactive and col-
laborative manner, emphasizing peers’ social inter-
action and collective intelligence,and presents new
opportunities for leveraging the Web and engag-
ing its users more effectively.Within the last two to
three years,Web 2.0,ignited by successful Web 2.0-
based social applications such as MySpace,Flickr,
and YouTube, has been forging new applications
that were previously unimaginable.
Many enterprises are reaping significant benefits
from Web 2.0. In a recent McKinsey global survey,
more than three-fourths of senior executives par-
ticipating in the study said that Web 2.0 technolo-
gies are strategic and that they plan to increase
their investments in Web 2.0 applications (“How
Businesses Are Using Web 2.0: A McKinsey
Global Survey,” McKinsey Quarterly, June 2007;
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/links/26068).
Another survey indicated
that enterprises are rapidly
adopting Web 2.0—89 per-
cent of the CIOs questioned
said they had adopted at
least one or more Web 2.0
tools and saw relatively high
business value in the tech-
nology (G. Oliver Young,
“Efficiency Gains and Competitive Pressures
Drive Enterprise Web 2.0 Adoption,” Mar. 2007,
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/
Excerpt/0,7211,41794,00.html). Realizing Web
2.0’s importance, many IT vendors and service
providers are positioning their products and serv-
ices as “Web 2.0 ready” and are bringing new Web
2.0 development tools to market.
Although Web 2.0 technologies are becoming
mainstream both in consumer and business con-
texts, many IT professionals and businesses are
skeptical. Web 2.0 is an important phenomenon
that shouldn’t be ignored as hype or a passing fad.
This article will help you to understand Web 2.0
and its potential so you can harness it effectively.
FACETS OF WEB 2.0
Web 2.0 is both a usage and a technology para-
digm. It’s a collection of technologies, business
strategies, and social trends. Web 2.0 is more dy-
namic and interactive than its predecessor,Web 1.0,
letting users both access content from a Web site and
contribute to it. Web 2.0 lets users keep up with a
site’s latest content even without visiting the actual
Web page. It also lets developers easily and quickly
create new Web applications that draw on data,
information, or services available on the Internet.
Web 2.0 isn’t just a new version of the same old
Web, it’s a different thing in several ways. For
example,Web 2.0
• facilitates flexible Web design, creative reuse,
and updates;
Despite its promise to transform
how we use the Web, many
IT professionals and businesses
remain skeptical about Web 2.0’s
value.
What to Consider When
Choosing Blog Software
Web 2.0 Resources
Inside
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July ❘August 2007 IT Pro 35
• provides a rich, responsive user interface;
• facilitates collaborative content creation and modifica-
tion;
• enables the creation of new applications by reusing and
combining different applications on the Web or by com-
bining data and information from different sources;
• establishes social networks of people with common
interests; and
• supports collaboration and helps gather collective intel-
ligence.
Web 2.0,however, defies a widely agreed-upon,concise
definition—perhaps because the underlying phenomenon
is huge.
WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES AND SERVICES
Web 2.0 is an umbrella term encompassing several new
Web technologies, which I describe
in the following sections.
Blogs
A blog,short for Web log,is a pow-
erful two-way Web-based communi-
cation tool.A blog is a Web site where
people can enter their thoughts,ideas,
suggestions, and comments. Blog
entries,also known as blog posts,are
made in journal style and are usually
displayed in reverse chronological
order. A blog entry might contain text, images, or links to
other blogs and Web pages, as well as to other media related
to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual,but some focus
on photographs (photoblog or photolog), videos (videoblog
or vlog), or audio (podcast).A blog written from a mobile
device such as a pocket PC, mobile phone, or PDA is called
an mblog, and real-time blogging is known as liveblogging.
A blog can be private (internal to an organization) or pub-
lic (open to anyone).
Blog entries typically consist of a title, body, permalink
(permanent link), post date, comments, category or tag,
trackback (the ability to notify another blog that you
added a post to your blog that’s related to a post or com-
ment on its blog), or pingback (the ability to request noti-
fication when somebody links to one of your posts).
The blogosphere (or blogsphere) encompasses all blogs
as a community or social network. Many blogs are inter-
connected, some more densely than others, as bloggers
who read other blog entries link to them and reference
them in their own blogs. Bloggers also post comments on
each others’ blog entries.A blogroll is a blogger’s list of
links to other blogs or Web sites that he or she reads.
Blogs have several unique characteristics that together
distinguish them from other forms of electronic commu-
nications such as email, instant messaging,short message
service, and multimedia message service (Robert Scoble
and Shel Israel, Naked Conversations:Blogs Are Changing
the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, Wiley, 2006). For
example,anyone can publish a blog post easily and cheaply
through a Web interface, and any reader can place a com-
ment on a blog post. These blog posts and comments are
instantly available on the Web.
In addition, blogs are easy to find.You can search for
blog posts by various criteria, including subject and author,
using blog search engines such as Technorati (http://
www.technorati.com) and Feedster (http://www.feedster.
com). Some of these search engines can track the inter-
connections between bloggers and rank blogs depending
on how many sites link to them.
Another unique characteristic of blogs is that a blog post
can link to other blog posts, so interesting posts travel
from site to site.And, through these linked blogs, people
with similar interests can build relationships and form
communities.
Finally, blog readers can syndi-
cate blogs, so if you subscribe to a
blog, you’ll know when it’s updated,
saving you search time. You can
subscribe to several blogs, and you
can get free “home delivery” of
blog entries to your personalized
Web page or email software.
Many businesses use blogs to
connect and engage with customers,
employees, and the general public.
Each day, users create 100,000 new blogs and make 1.3 mil-
lion entries (Dave Sifry, “State of the Blogosphere,”
Technorati Weblog, Oct. 2006, http://technorati.com/
weblog/2006/11/161.html).
Really Simple Syndication
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used for syndicat-
ing content from blogs or Web pages. RSS is an XML file
that summarizes information items and links to the infor-
mation sources.It informs users of updates to blogs or Web
sites they’re interested in.Web or blog RSS feeds are typ-
ically linked with the word “subscribe,”an orange rectan-
gle, or with the letters XML or RSS in an orange box.
Feed reader or aggregator programs can check a list of
feeds on the user’s behalf and display any updated articles
they find. Popular Web browsers have built-in feed read-
ers or aggregators, and you can easily add feeds to your
Web page.
Atom is another syndication specification aimed at
resolving issues of multiple incompatible RSS versions.
Wikis
A wiki is a simple yet powerful Web-based collabora-
tive-authoring (or content-management) system for cre-
ating and editing content. It lets anyone add a new article
or revise an existing article through a Web browser. Users
Web 2.0, however,
defies a widely
agreed-upon, concise
definition—perhaps
because the underlying
phenomenon is huge.
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36 IT Pro July ❘August 2007
can also track changes made to an article.The term wiki is
derived from the Hawaiian word wikiwiki, which means
fast or quick. The user-generated online encyclopedia
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) is a wiki.
Wiki features include:
•A wiki markup language. “Wikitext” provides a short-
hand way of formatting text and linking external docu-
ments and contents.
•Simple site structure and navigation. Contributors can
create new pages and easily link one page to another.
Because a blog site’s hierarchy and structure is flat, the
navigation is simple.
•Simple templating. When a page of wikitext is requested,
wiki software converts the wiki markup to HTML and
creates links between pages, and wraps this converted
content in a template to provide a consistent look to all
pages in the wiki.
•Support for multiple users. Hyperlinks to pages within the
wiki are created automatically.Wiki software makes links
based on the page’s title, so the author doesn’t need to
use, remember, or type long URLs to link one page to
another within a wiki.
•Simple workflow.You can write or edit and publish with-
out editorial oversight or approval. Content in a wiki is
managed through change monitoring and the wiki’s abil-
ity to roll back to a previous version and prevent spam.
You can also control user access and privileges, if
required.
•A built-in search feature. You can search for specific
information or topic within a wiki using associated key-
words.
To experience a wiki, visit Wikipedia and write a new arti-
cle or update an existing article,or use Wikipedia’s sandbox.
Wikis offer:
• asynchronous contribution by a group of people—for
example, experts, peers, employees, and users—who
might be at different geographical locations;
• excellent means to annotate information or discuss
evolving issues;
• higher communication efficiency and productivity com-
pared to “back-and-forth”exchanges of emails;
• support for harnessing the power of diverse individuals
to create collaborative works;
• centralized, shared repositories of knowledge and docu-
ments for all aspects of a project—planning, development,
implementation, maintenance, and management;and
• support for the content to evolve,expand, and improve
incrementally over time.
However, wikis have some limitations that need to be
addressed, as required, before they can be widely
deployed. They include content accuracy, balance, com-
prehensiveness,consistency, and reliability; issues of legal
liability, privacy, reputation, and security; and accounta-
bility and controllability.
Mashups
A Web mashup is a Web page or Web site that combines
information and services from multiple sources on the
Web. Similar to music mashups,where artists combine,for
example, vocals from one song with the music from
another,Web mashups combine information and/or com-
plementary functionality from multiple Web sites or Web
applications.A Web mashup server lets you connect, col-
lect, and mash up anything on the Web as well as data on
some backend systems.
Mashups can be grouped into seven categories: mapping,
search, mobile, messaging, sports, shopping, and movies.
More than 40 percent of mashups are mapping mashups
(Eric van der Vlist and colleagues, Professional Web 2.0
Programming, Wrox, 2006).
HousingMaps (http://www.housingmaps.com) is a typi-
cal mashup application. It pulls sales and rental informa-
tion from the classified advertisement Web site Craigslist
(http://www.craigslist. com) and displays the listings on
interactive maps pulled from Google Maps.Users can drag
the map to see what is available for sale or rent in a given
region. Several other new-breed Web applications simi-
larly integrate multiple services under a rich user inter-
face. For instance, Fishing Solutions (http://www.
fishingsolutions.com.au) uses Google Maps and informa-
tion from anglers to help users find fish. Roadwatch
(http://www.roadwatch.com.au) shows all the speed cam-
eras in an area or on route to a destination.
It’s easier and quicker to create a mashup than to code
an application from scratch in a traditional way. This
capability is one of Web 2.0’s most important and valuable
features.
Mashup API. Mashups are generally created using appli-
cation programming interfaces. Simple and well-docu-
mented APIs make mashup creation easy.
An API is an interface provided by an application that
lets users interact with or respond to data or service
requests from another program, other applications, or Web
sites.APIs facilitate data exchange between applications,
allow the creation of new applications,and form the foun-
dation for the “Web as a platform” concept.
For example, Google Maps’ API lets developers inte-
grate Google Maps into their Web sites using their own
data points.APIs for other services,such as weather or cal-
endar information and search functions,are also available.
Amazon’s Web site offers several APIs, making it easy for
other business Web sites to interact with it. For a directory
of categories of APIs available for use, see Webmashup
(http://www.webmashup.com/Mashup_APIs/index.html).
In addition to APIs, you can incorporate data feeds into
a mashup.Or, at the most basic level,programmers can use
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July ❘August 2007 IT Pro 37
screen scraping, a technique for extracting any informa-
tion, of any type, from any Web page.
The power of mashups. A mashup’s value isn’t in the data
or service itself,but in a better user interface for the data, or
in its ability to combine data from several sources in inter-
esting or significant ways.Three main types of mashups are
in use (see Eric van der Vlist and colleagues, Professional
Web 2.0 Programming,Wrox, 2006); those that provide the
following:
•An enhanced user interface. Drawing on data from
mostly one source, this type of mashup provides a bet-
ter interface—for example, a better way to navigate
through information, a more responsive interface, or the
presentation of more relevant information by display-
ing only a subset of information that is of particular
interest to the user.
•Value-added information by
aggregation. By bringing together
information from various sources
on the Web—both internal and
external to an enterprise—into a
dashboard-like view, this type of
mashup adds value by aggregat-
ing the data, making the com-
bined data more relevant.
•Value-added information aug-
mented with an enhanced user
interface. This type of mashup
aggregates data from different sources and presents the
data with a better user interface.
For information on the latest mashups and new
Web 2.0 APIs, see ProgrammableWeb (http://www.
programmableweb.com).
Developers and enterprises are beginning to use
mashups to create new Web applications that provide
value-added new features,knit together multiple services,
and provide rich user interfaces.Because they are easy to
create,even employees who are technically less-savvy can
create Web mashups, rather than having to rely on enter-
prise IT teams.
An enterprise can use mashups internally to collect
information from different sources and combine it in intel-
ligent ways to help people make smarter decisions. For
example, executives can use mashups to gain a deeper
understanding of customers and sales, and thus to make
better decisions. Mashups also find application in areas
such as payroll, customer relationship management,logis-
tics,procurement, marketing,and e-commerce.
By opening up data and services that mashup creators
can use, enterprises can gain strategic advantages. For
example,the mashed-up applications can divert new users
to their sites,or mashup creators could develop a new Web
site that provides better interfaces to an enterprise’s exist-
ing Web site, which in turn could bring more visitors to the
enterprise’s site.
Although a mashup makes it easy to draw on multiple
data sources or services to create new applications quickly,
there are also risks in using someone’s mashup service or
API, in terms of their continued support,reliability,secu-
rity, and scalability. Developers and enterprises that deploy
and use mashup applications should be aware of the risks
and limitations and choose dependable services.
Tags, folksonomy, and tag clouds
Tags are keywords added to articles in blogs or Web pages
via social page tag tools such as del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us),
Technorati, and Yahoo’s My Web. Most blogs and Web pub-
lications use tags.Tags are also known as labels, and the
process of creating tags is known as tagging.
Folksonomy refers to user-created
taxonomies of information. It is an
ad hoc classification scheme that
Web users create as they surf the
Web to categorize the content they
find online. It uses collaboratively
generated, open-ended tags or labels
that categorize content such as Web
pages,online photographs,and Web
links. A special feature of folk-
sonomies is that they don’t have a
hierarchy as in professionally devel-
oped taxonomies with controlled
vocabularies, and hence they’re inherently open ended.
Folksonomies (such as user-created tags for photos on
Flickr and tags for bookmarking in Del.icio.us) can,there-
fore, respond quickly to changes, innovations, and fads in
how users categorize content on the Web.
Social bookmarking is the process by which users book-
mark interesting pages and assign tags to each. Users can
then share their tagged bookmarks (see, for example,
del.icio.us). Social bookmarking is a great way of captur-
ing contextual knowledge.
A tag cloud is a visual depiction of a list of content tags
used on a Web site or blog, with some kind of visualization
for each tag’s popularity level. Generally, more frequently
used tags are depicted in a larger font or are emphasized
some other way, and the display order is alphabetical,mak-
ing it easy to find a tag by popularity or place in the alpha-
bet. Selecting a tag within a tag cloud will generally give
you a collection of items associated with that tag.You can
add a tag cloud to your Web site or blog using free, online
services provided by vendors such as ZoomClouds
(http://zoomclouds.egrupos.net), or create a tag cloud
yourself. Popular Web sites such as Flickr, del.icio.us, and
Digg (http://www.digg.com) use tagging and social book-
marking services.
You can use tags and tag clouds to derive inferences from
an unstructured data source. For instance, one developer
Developers and
enterprises that deploy
and use mashup
applications should be
aware of the risks and
limitations and choose
dependable services.
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38 IT Pro July ❘August 2007
created a Web site that tracks US presidents’ state of the
union addresses to generate tag clouds (http://chir.ag/
phernalia/preztags). By glancing at these tag clouds, you
can see how the topics that influenced government policy
(or at the least state of the union addresses) have changed
over the years.You could deploy similar applications in a
range of domains having large unstructured data—busi-
ness, insurance, law, and more—to draw inferences such
as common reasons for claims, most popular goods, com-
mon crimes,and popular topics.
DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES
Developers use three principle development approaches
to create Web 2.0 applications: Asynchronous JavaScript
and XML (AJAX),Flex, and the Google Web Toolkit.
AJAX
AJAX is a relatively new approach to creating Web appli-
cations.It enriches the user interface, making it highly inter-
active and more responsive.It’s really several technologies
coming together in powerful new ways—XHTML or
HTML, cascading stylesheets (CSS),JavaScript, and XML.
AJAX-style programming makes Web pages more
responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the
server so that the entire Web page doesn’t have to be
reloaded each time the user requests a change.An AJAX
application eliminates the start-stop-start-stop nature of
Web interaction by introducing an intermediary—an
AJAX engine—between the user and the server. The
AJAX engine both renders the user interface and com-
municates with the server on the user’s behalf.It thus over-
comes the page-loading requirements of HTML/HTTP-
mediated Web pages and so significantly improves a Web
page’s interactivity, speed, and usability, making it easier to
deploy rich-client Web applications.
For more information, see the AJAX Learning Guide
(http://go.techtarget.com/r/1262974/3697538).
Flex
Adobe Flex (http://www.adobe.com/products/flex) is an
application development solution for creating and deliver-
ing cross-platform rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the
Web. Flex is based on Flash and provides a standards-based
language and programming model that supports common
design patterns.It provides a more productive Eclipse-based
development environment; dramatically improves applica-
tion performance; supports new classes of applications, such
as those requiring real-time data push; and provides more
fine-grained control over an application’s look and feel. Flex
and Flash have complementary strengths.While Flash helps
users create rich interactive content, Flex leverages the
development of data-driven RIAs.
Flex lets enterprises create engaging, interactive, expres-
sive, scalable applications that dramatically enhance the
user experience by increasing user interactivity with the
application. For example, a data visualization application
built in Flex can pull data from multiple backend sources
and display it visually.A product configuration application
can help customers navigate the process of selecting or
customizing products online.
Google Web Toolkit
GWT is an open source Java development framework
that makes it easy to develop and debug AJAX applica-
tions.Writing dynamic Web applications is a tedious and
error-prone process, and JavaScript’s lack of modularity
makes sharing, testing, and reusing AJAX components dif-
ficult and fragile.
GWT lets developers create applications in Java using
the Java development tools of their choice. Its compiler
translates the Java application to browser-compliant
JavaScript and HTML for deployment.The toolkit also
provides widgets to construct the user interface elements
comprising an AJAX application.
So, GWT overcomes the limitations of writing AJAX
applications using a mix of technologies, while offering
users the same dynamic, standards-compliant experience.
For more information on GWT and its features, see
http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/.
WEB 2.0 DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
Several development tools are available for creating
blogs, wikis, mashups, and social networks. These tools
make adoption of Web 2.0 easier, quicker,and cheaper.
Blog software
Blog software, also called blogware, is designed for cre-
ating and managing blogs.The following are three popu-
lar blog software programs:
Movable Type is a proprietary blog publishing system
that must be installed on a user’s Web server. It supports
most blogging features,including user accounts, comments,
categories, themes, and trackbacks, and is extensible
through a large library of third-party plug-ins.The system
is written in Perl and stores the blog’s content and associ-
ated data within MySQL.
WordPress is a blog hosting provider.The online system
lets users create and manage their own blogs without
requiring technical knowledge.To set up a blog,a user reg-
isters with WordPress and opens a free hosting account.
Users don’t need to register to read or comment on blogs
hosted on the site,unless the blog owner requires it. Most
of the site’s features are free,but some,such as a CSS edi-
tor and domain mapping, are available only to users who
pay for them.
Blogger is another blog hosting system. Blogger can host
blogs internally (using a blogspot.com address), externally
on a user’s domain, or on the user’s server (through FTP or
SFTP). Blogger also supports Google’s AdSense service as
a simple way of generating revenue from running a blog.
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July ❘August 2007 IT Pro 39
Choosing an appropriate blog software for enterprise
applications requires that you consider several factors,as
I describe in the “What to Consider When Choosing Blog
Software” sidebar.
When choosing blog software for an application, you
should consider several key features.
Editing and posting
To let authors better present, effectively manage,
and categorize blog posts; and to let readers easily
navigate and search blog posts, choose a blog software
that supports the following key editing and posting
features:
➤Post editor—the type of editor used to edit the pri-
mary post field
➤Post ordering—method for ordering the display of
posts on the site (chronological or alphabetical order,
or ordered by category or topic)
➤Categories—whether the system lets you classify
posts by category (no category, single category, or
multiple category)
➤Subcategories—whether a system lets you create
subcategories in a hierarchy
➤Keywords—whether the system lets you associate
keywords to your post, and returns posts related to
the keywords via a keyword search
➤Draft mode—whether the system lets you submit an
unpublished draft of a post
➤Post moderation—whether you can require editor
or administrative-level approval of a post before it’s
published
➤Cross-post—whether the system lets you apply a sin-
gle post to more than one blog simultaneously
Syndication and comments
The following blog software features let you provide
blog post syndication and aggregation:
➤Post pings—whether the system will “ping” to indi-
cate when a new post is published to the site
➤Really Simple Syndication (RSS)/Atom output
for syndication—whether the system supports
RSS or Web feeds that summarize information
posted on your blog and link to the blog post to
let users aggregate content (using feed readers or
aggregator programs) from yours and other blogs
of interest, or to inform users of updates to your
blog.
➤Comments—whether the system supports comments
for each post; whether the system also supports
threaded comments where replies made to a com-
ment are displayed so that this is apparent, rather
than a flat stream of comments and replies to com-
ments in the sequence they were posted
➤Comment spam—methods available to prevent com-
ment spam such as login, filtering, captcha (a secu-
rity feature that provides an image that includes
letters and numbers, and requires the user to type in
those letters and numbers), IP ban, user ban, mod-
erate, blacklist, delay, and shut off
➤Comment RSS—whether the system offers com-
ments for a post as an RSS feed
System control and monitoring
To better control user privileges and monitor blog use,
choose a blog software that supports the following:
➤Provision for user registration
➤User privileges—the ability to assign users different
permissions
➤Trackback—the ability to notify another blog that
you added a post to your blog that’s related to a post
or comment on its blog
➤Pingback—the ability to request notification when
somebody links to one of your posts
➤Cascading stylesheets editor—whether the system
includes an online editor for CSS
➤Plug-ins/extensions—the ability to add functional-
ity to the base system
➤Visitor logs—whether a system can display a log of
recent visitors to the blog site, including such infor-
mation as pages visited, user agent, IP address, and
nationality
➤Referrer logs—whether a system displays a log of
referring sites
➤User profiles—level of detail allowed for user profiles
➤Password posts—whether the system lets users pass-
word-protect individual posts so only visitors who
know the correct password may read them
Adopted from “Blog Software Breakdown” (http://
asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm) and San
Murugesan’s Business Uses of Web 2.0: Potential and
Prospects, Cutter Business-IT Strategies Report, 2007
(https://cutter.com/cgi-bin/catalog/store.cgi?action=
link&sku=RP62BD0701&uid=).
What to Consider When Choosing Blog Software
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40 IT Pro July ❘August 2007
Wiki engines
Wiki software or a wiki engine runs a wiki system.A wiki
engine is usually implemented as server-side script that
runs on one or more Web servers, with the content gener-
ally stored in a relational database management system.
MediaWiki and TWiki are two of the more sophisticated
open source wiki applications. Commercial wiki engines
include Socialtext (http://www.socialtext.com), JotSpot
(http://www.jotspot.com), and Atlassian (http://
www.atlassian.com).Other popular Wiki engines include
MoinMoin (http://moinmoin.wikiwikiWeb.de), PmWiki
(http://www.pmwiki.org), and UseModWiki (http://www.
usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl).
Choosing a wiki engine for an application depends on
several factors,including the following:
•Editor features—WYSIWYG capabilities, sectional edit-
ing, rollback to earlier versions, file upload, image inser-
tion, and so on
•Reader features—table of contents, navigation bar,
search, access/usage statistics, article rating, and print-
able version
•Groupware features—forum, gallery, and message system
•User management—user personal page and personal-
ized toolbar and preferences
•Access controls—user access and privilege controls
(important for internal enterprise applications)
•Content import and export—the ability to import con-
tent from external files (for example, HTML or a Word
document) or to export wiki content in a specified file
format
•Extensibility—availability of third-party plug-ins and
provisions for creating them, if required
•Portability—support for other formats, so you can export
your text to other systems
•Scalability—number of articles,volume of content, and
number of users (writers/readers) the wiki can handle
•Hosting platform—where the wiki will be hosted (on a
server or a local machine) and whether it will require
online access
Mashup tools
Several mashup tools are available for creating Web
mashups.These include the following:
• Above All Studio, http://www.aboveallsoftware.com/
product_studio.asp
• ActionBridge, http://www.nimaya.com/salesforce/index.
asp
• Dapper, http://www.dappit.com
• DataMashups, http://DataMashups.com
• JackBuilder, http://jackbe.com/Products/ide.php
• Process Engine, http://www.procession.com/products
/process_engine.html
• Ratchet-X Studio,http://www.ratchetsoft.com/sitenonie/
html/studio.html
• RSSBus, http://rssbus.com
You can find a review of these tools elsewhere (Dion
Hinchcliffe,“Assembling Great Software:A Round-Up of
Eight Mashup Tools,” 2 Sept. 2006, http://blogs.zdnet.
com/Hinchcliffe/?p=63). Many more mashup tools will be
commercially available soon.
You can experience the elegance and simplicity of
mashups by assembling one yourself at DataMashups,
which provides an online service preview that lets you start
assembling mashups using a rich palette of preexisting
widgets,feeds, data from local and remote SQL databases,
and more.
Although Web 2.0 began simply as a consumer phe-
nomenon, attracting numerous users and contribu-
tors for social applications such as MySpace, Flickr
and YouTube,and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia,it has
significantly impacted many other application areas by
SECOND-GENERATION WEB TECHNOLOGIES
The following are some helpful resources:
➤Dion Hinchcliffe’s Enterprise Web2.0 (http://
blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe) reviews Web 2.0’s
progress and explores Web 2.0’s enterprise appli-
cations.
➤eConsultant: Ultimate Web Developers Lists and
Web 2.0 Directory (http://www.econsultant.com/
Web2/index.html) presents a categorized list of
more than 1,000 Web 2.0 applications.
➤KoolWEB 2.0 (http://www.koolWeb2.com) is a
good place for finding new Web 2.0 applications,
and it lets users submit services and rate existing
services.
➤Listible: Complete List of Web 2.0 Products and
Services (http://www.listible.com/list/complete-
list-of-Web-2-0-products-and-services) is an excel-
lent Web 2.0 resource.
➤Mashable (http://www.mashable.com) presents
research into social networks, particularly widg-
ets and other social networking add-ons.
➤ProgrammableWeb (http://www.programmableweb.
com) presents the latest mashups, and new and
interesting developments in Web 2.0 APIs and in
the Web as a platform. It includes a blog and three
dashboards—home, mashups, and APIs—which
are updated daily.
Web 2.0 Resources
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July ❘August 2007 IT Pro 41
enabling better, faster, and richer applications, while reduc-
ing costs of development and deployment and offering tan-
gible benefits.For example, Web 2.0 can help businesses in
product development, market research,competitive intel-
ligence gathering, and revenue generation (for an overview,
see San Murugesan, Business Uses of Web 2.0: Potential and
Prospects, Cutter Consortium, 2007 (https://cutter.com/
cgi-bin/catalog/store.cgi?action=link&sku=RP62BD0701&
uid=)). In addition to the wide array of Web 2.0 applica-
tions under development (see the “Web 2.0 Resources”
sidebar), a growing number of companies are offering inno-
vative new services free online.
Web 2.0 applications, however, pose a new design and
development dilemma: fast and easy versus well designed
and well engineered.We need to rethink Web application
development methods in light of Web 2.0. Addressing the
issues of scalability, performance, and security of Web 2.0
applications is another challenge for IT professionals.■
San Murugesan is adjunct professor in the School of Com-
puting and Mathematics at the University of Western Syd-
ney in Australia and an independent IT and education
consultant. Contact him at san1@internode.on.net.
For further information on this or any other computing topic,
please visit our Digital Library at http://www.computer.org/
publications/dlib.
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