Web 2.0
“Web 2.0″ is a term coined a few years ago when these types of sites started turning up. Basically it’s a new way of using the Internet. In the past the Internet was primarily a place to go and look up information or purchase something. Today we’ve learned to use it in more interactive ways — sharing information back and forth, instead of just reading it like a book.
What Makes a Site 2.0?
So how do you know if you’ve landed on a web 2.0 site or not? An easy way to tell is if you are being asked to contribute. 2.0 sites ask you, the reader, to add your comments, insights, edits, etc.
Social Networking Sites
Some 2.0 sites want you to share things about yourself, like pictures, biographies and diaries. Examples are MySpace.com and Facebook.com. These sights are still growing in popularity amongst young and old alike. Celebrities use them to update their fans on or promote their latest works. Internet marketers use them to find people interested in their products and keep them informed.
Bookmarking Sites
Like their more social counterparts above, bookmarking sites ask you to list your favorite websites, thereby sharing them with the site’s community of users.
A folksonomy is a special type of bookmarking site where users classify their bookmark into categories. They do this by using “tags,” a type of phrase or label that tells something about the sites so categorized. An example of a folksonomy is flickr.com where users categorize and share photographs.
Sites tagged in this manner are not only likely to be indexed by the search engines, but they act as search engines themselves. Members will often look up tags on their favorite folksonomy site first rather than visit Google.
Blogs
Blogs, too, are considered Web 2.0 sites. Many are like personal diaries while others concentrate on a specific topic and present news and information on that subject. Most blogs invite comments from their readers. There are even search engines that concentrate on tracking blogs. Technorati.com is one such search engine.
Blogs are popular with Internet marketers as it is a place they can frequently provide updates to their content. A word of caution, however. Negative comments on a blog can backfire. Bloggers can and have been cited for defamation. Be sure your blog posts are appropriately respectful and have good intent.
Wikis
You’ve undoubtedly heard of Wikipedia.org, the most famous of the wikis. A wiki is gathering of content that can be edited, added to and even deleted by other users. Although interesting, take this content with a grain of salt. Since anyone can write it, there tend to me many misstatements. The community atmosphere can mitigate the seriousness of these misstatements, but they aren’t perfect monitors.
Spam
Yes, you can spam social networking sites, and every hates a spammer! You need to be careful to not overdo posting to these sites and assure what you DO post is quality material. For example, continuously bookmarking the same site over and over again does not add to the quality of the bookmarking site, and will probably earn you the title of spammer. You might even get kicked off the site!
