WEB 1.0 vs WEB 2.0 

These two terms are challenging and people can sometimes misuse then. They both refer to the conceptual evolution of the World Wide Web, going through different stages of limitations in each of them. We will try to give a bird’s-eye view of the ever-changing lay of the land on the web and distinguish its main differential characteristics.

According with the web update (n.d), Web 1.0 is the first state of World Wide Web which was in the basic Read Only hypertext system.” According to Wikipedia, Web 1.0 is a retronym which refers to the state of the World Wide Web, and website design style before the Web 2.0 phenomenon, and included most websites in the period between 1994 and 2004. Web 1.0 pages have the following characteristics:

·         They use basic html (hypertext mark-up language) for publishing content on the internet. These are static web pages.

·         They have Read-Only content.

·         The web master is solely responsible for updating users and managing the content of the website. 

·         They do not support mass-publishing.

·         Webmaster manually assigns all the hyperlinks to the content of the web page.

·         The contact information provided by Web 1.0 is email, fax, phone number and the address.

·         They use framesets.

·         The Web 1.0 pages can only be understood by humans (web readers). They do not have machine compatible content.

On the other hand, Web 2.0, or read-write web encourages creativity, communication and networking among the internet users. It is the read write networking platform where the internet users will be able to interact and communicate among each other. Web 2.0 uses XML over HTML which makes it user friendly and machine compatible. Wikipedia’s definition, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform”. The characteristics of Web 2.0 are:

·         Web 2.0 promotes user interaction and communication where web masters and the users could network in a better way.

·         It uses SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). The examples of SOA are RSS feeds, web services which defines how Web 2.0 application exposes functionality.

·         Web 2.0 is all about social web. Social networking sites, blogging, podcast, wiki all come under this. The social web service has turned out to be a huge success on the internet.

·         It follows the phenomenon that web is open to all. Anyone could be the author and start their own blog or drop their opinion on somebody else’s pages.

·         Web 2.0 includes technologies like RSS (Rich Site Syndication), wikis, forums, blogging.

Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 (n.d). [Online blog]. Retrieved April 30, 2012 from the World Wide Web: http: http://web-updates.avenuesnepal.com/web-10-vs-web-20/

Seminar report on “Web 3.0” (n.d). [Online paper]. Retrieved April 30, 2012 from the World Wide Web: http://www.seminarpaper.com/2011/12/seminar-report-on-web-30.html