After craving long to setup a blog , here I am with my first one. I've written about some of the most fruitful and must know web 2.0 services .Before proceeding , let us first briefly know what web 2.0 exactly is . One can find profuse definitions as per different people's understandings . I believe that web 2.0 is
"Web as a platform"
In web 2.0 , the internet is less a source of information and more a platform for information sharing. The best paradigm can be the Wikipedia . While the Britanica encyclopedia acts as a source of information , Wikipedia acts as a platform,letting the users to actively post , update and edit articles ; thus serving the purpose of web 2.0 browsing . Check out the video below for better understanding.
Below are such web 2.0 services with straight and crisp descriptions ,handy direct -to -site links and a screenshot. I've categorized the applications in a wide range of groups for you to easily pick up the desired info. I'll constantly upgrade the blog with more such looming web2.0 applications . So stay tuned to the blog to be revised on the vital web techs .
Mashup is a kind of application that takes information from two or more open APIs and data source from many places on web ,to mix it together and form a single multi-functional application . Examples of mashups can be emessanger and meebo of which i've written in earlier posts. Such mashups can be created using mashup editors. In this post i've listed the top three online mashup editors.
Google mashup editor is a easy simple way to develop a web application or mashups using Google services like Google Earth , Google Maps , Google Base , etc. In a few lines of familiar code (like XML ,Jscript ,HTML , CSS) and one click of button, your mashup can be published to the world .This service also allows to integrate your feeds and manipulate them in one place.It also allows you to test your creation before publishing it . view screenshot
Yahoo says " Pipes is a composition tool to aggregate , manipulate ,mashup contents from around the web " . It allows you to remix favorite data sources ,create custom feeds by getting them together , sorting , translating and filtering and geocode (map the feeds to view on an online map ) them .It uses a drag and drop environment letting you to compose great applications with minimum code knowledge . Thus making it much more flexible than Google Mashup Editor .You can check out a free usage demo here
Microsoft terms Popfly as " A fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, games, Web pages, and applications. " The product allows you to map any kind of information so that it can be shared with friends . Its a very user friendly and powerful source to step into small game and web creation .
StumbleUpon helps you discover websites that match your personality.When the stumble button is clicked, the web pages that match your interest are displayed on the browser work area . Videos and blogs of your interest will also be delivered to you. the stumble button is located on the stumbleupon toolbar which can be downloaded from the StumbleUponwebsite. You can also rate the sites you visit by using the thumbs up and thumbs down icons on the toolbar. Through the rating ,StumbleUpon estimates your interests and adds similar sites to its database.
Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. Everything on Digg (news , videos ,images) is submitted by the user community. Each article submitted has a count .Each time a user clicks 'digg it' ,the count goes up by one. The submission with maximum digs will be displayed on the site's home page . Digg also provides tool to the community to discuss on digged articles.
Its an online bookmarking service that enables users to tag ,share and save web pages of interest. Instead of having different bookmarks on your computer, Delicious makes it possible to have a set of bookmarks stored online so that they can be accessed from any other computer .The site allows sending to and receiving bookmarked sites from friends.
Its a major search engine that can be used to search blogs all over the web. To make finding easier, faster and enhanced, the site bares categories of blogs like politics , sports , business , etc. Its one of the fastest growing sites and is treated to be the best of its kind .
Its one of the worlds most popular blogging site . It displayed a massive 91% raise in 2008. The site helps raise money for charity or for self use through ads and affiliate links besides being a simple way to gather and share information about peoples interests .
Owned by AOL, Weblogs,inc is one of the largest blog directories with wide range of subjects from computers to games . The site bares widely accepted and followed blogs like Engadget, joystiq , TV squard , Autoblog , and TUAW.
Blogger is an easy to use website with handy and advanced features, where you can post your thoughts , make friends with people , view other's blogs and know and share stuff you care about. It also servers as a means to earn through displaying ads managed by Google'sAdSense in your posts .
