Características de la web 2.0

Technology & Standards Watch

What is Web 2.0?
Ideas, technologies and implications for
education
by
Paul Anderson

This report was peer reviewed by:

Mark Hepworth
Senior Lecturer, Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Brian Kelly
Policy and Advice Team Leader and Web Focus
UKOLN
Randy Metcalfe
Manager, OSSWatch
University of Oxford
Lawrie Phipps
ProgrammeManager, Users and Innovation
JISC

JISC Technology and Standards W atch, Feb . 2007

Web 2.0

Web 2 Executive summary
Within 15 years the Web has gro wn fro m a group wo rk tool for scientists at CERN into a global
information space with more than a billion users. Currently, it is both returning to its roots as a
read/ write tool and also entering a new, more social an d participatoryphase. Thes e trends have l ed to a
feeling that the Web is entering a ‘second phase’—a new, ‘i mproved’ Web version 2.0 . But ho w
justified is this perception?
This Tech Watch report was co mmissioned to investigate the substance behind the hyp erbole
surrounding ‘Web 2 .0’ and to repo rt on the i mplications this may h ave for the UK Higher and Further
Education sector, with a special focus on collection and preserv ation activities within libraries. The
report argu es that by s eparating out the discussion of Web technologies (ongoing Web development
overseen by the W3 C), fro m the more recent applicatio ns and services (social so ftware), and attempts
to understand the manifestations and adoption of these services (the ‘big ideas’), decision makers will
find it easier tounderstand and act on the strategic impl ications of ‘Web 2.0’. Indeed, an alysing the
composition and interplay of these strands provides a u seful framewo rk fo r understanding its
significance.
The report establishes that Web 2.0 is more than a set o f ‘cool’ and new technologies and services ,
important though some of these are. It has , at its heart, a set of at least six po werful ideasthat are
changing the way some people interact. Secondly, it is also important to ackno wledge that thes e ideas
are not n ecessarily the pres erve of ‘Web 2 .0’, but are, in fact , direct or indirect reflections of the po wer
of the net work: the strange effects and topologies at the micro and macro lev el that a billion Internet
users produce. This might well be why Sir Tim Berners -Lee, thecreator of the World Wide Web,
maintains that Web 2.0 is really just an extension of the original ideals of the Web that does not
warrant a special moniker. Ho wever, business con cerns are increasingly shaping the way in which we
are b eing led to think and potentially act on the Web an d this has implications for the control of public
and private d ata. Indeed , Ti m O’Reilly’s originalattempt to articulate the key ideas behind Web 2.0
was focused on a desire to be able to b enchmark and th erefore identify a set o f new, innovative
companies that were potentially ripe for investment. Th e UK HE sector should debate whether this is a
long-term issue and maybe delineating Web fro m Web 2.0 will help us to do that .
As with other aspects of university life the library has n otescaped considerable discussion about the
potential change afforded by the introduction of Web 2.0 and social media. On e of the key objectives
of the report is to ex amine some of the work in this area and to tease out some of the key elements of
ongoing discussions. For example, the report argues that there needs to be a distinction between
concerns around quality of s ervice and ‘user-centredch ange’ and the services and applications that are
being driven by Web 2.0 ideas. This is particularly i mp ortant for library collection and preservation
activities and some of the key qu estions for libraries are: is the content p roduced by Web 2.0 services
sufficiently or fundamentally different to that of previous Web content and, in particular, do its
characteristics make it harder to...