Defining Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a term used to describe a new movement in website design that ultimately allows for unprecedented creative and collaborative involvement of its users. This shift in development strategy has revolutionised traditional applications of the world wide web, enabling it as a platform that focuses upon user participation rather than observation. Web 2.0 is the means of allowing data to become independent of the original producer (often referred to as 'open source').

Websites characteristic of web 2.0 often contain all or most of the following features:

Authoring - An interactive quality allowing the author or other users to add to and edit content

Tags - Organisation of information into similar classes

Search - Ability to find information within the platform and from other platforms

Links - Direction toward other pages of significant importance

Since its realisation in 2004, web 2.0 has by far surpassed the functional and aesthetic design of its predecessor web 1.0 and now largely allows for inter-connectivity and interactivity within web based content.