Week 6 - Media, New Media, Social Media

The internet is a tool that has come to be an intricate element to the function of day to day life in today's society. The internet first began as an educational tool and has transformed into the multifunctional device it is today. We have now moved into an era of Web 2.0.

The bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2001 marked a turning point for the web and the new era of the Web world began. The concept of Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that provide interactive information sharing on the World Wide Web. The term first began during a brainstorming concept between Tim O'Reilly and MediaLive International. After the crash of the Web, O’Reilly together with his ‘high tech’ friends believed that the web was still more important as ever, thus the Web.20 was born.

In an online article by Exforsys Inc entitled Advantages and Disadvantages of Web 2.0 defined Web 2.0 in a very simplistic manner, “Web 2.0 is a system in which online users become participants rather than mere viewers” (http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/web-2.0/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-web-2.0.html).

Web 2.0 allows for information to be accessed and personalised to meet the needs of the individual user. Web 2.0 allows for mass population to communicate with each other. The advantage of this is that information has the ability to flow freely and ideas can be expressed without the fear of repression. Exforsys Inc describes the internet through Web 2.0 as a true democratic system, a digital democracy. Society has the ability to access information from more than one source, thus becoming a more informed society. An example of this is the reading of newspapers all around the world. You have the ability to read several newspapers which comprises of different information and different views.

The internet is no longer available on a ‘read-only’ basis, it now provides user-generated content in a virtual community.

Examples of Web 2.0 include social-networking sites, blogs, video-sharing sites, web applications and mashups.

http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html