# What is Web 2.0?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/07/20/what-web-20/
- Published: 2007-07-20T06:58:24+01:00
- Author: Bryan Miller

**You’re likely to read a lot of references to Web 2.0 in the posts that follow 
here, so I thought it’d be handy to kick-off with a very quick explanation of just
what is meant by the term.**

In short, Web 2.0 is used to describe web-based services which specifically facilitate
collaboration and sharing between their users – such as social network sites (e.
g. [MySpace](http://www.myspace.com) and [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com)); wikis(
e.g. [Wikipedia](http://wikipedia.org)); and folksonomies (e.g. [Flickr](http://www.flickr.com)
and [del.icio.us](http://del.icio.us)).

The term Web 2.0 is really a bit misleading, in that it could be read as meaning
a second generation of the World Wide Web itself – which it is not. The extension‘
2.0’ originally came from Tim O’Reilly at O’Reilly Media and was intended to refer
to an evolution in Web use which characterised those internet businesses which survived
the bursting of the dot-com bubble in late 2001.

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If you’re really keen, you can read Tim O’Reilly’s full explanation of the term 
in his article [‘What is Web 2.0’](http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html).

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