Web 2.0 is a concept, an approach to developing web solutions wherein the emphasis is on enabling the active participation and interaction among people. The idea is to allow people to become active contributors to websites. Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services which aim to provide a better collaboration and sharing between users. It relates to a transition of websites from isolated information silos to interlinked computing platforms.

Some of the technologies and tools that allow the user to do more than just retrieve information include the following:

• Social Networking: It provide a forum for like minded people to meet and interact with each other such as MySpace, Facebook, Flickr etc
• Blogs: It provides users with an easy mechanism to publish content on the web.
• Rich Internet Applications: Provide a more interactive and dynamic browsing experience to the users by using technologies such as AJAX, Flash etc.
• Social Book-marking: It allows users to classify and store a list of resources collated from all over the web.
• Viral Marketing: Websites that follow the web 2.0 techniques and practices attract greater exposure resulting in an increase in site traffic.

The features of Web 2.0 are as follows:

Empowering Users: Web 2.0 applications provide facilities for users to create, publish and share content over the web.

Networking: Web 2.0 applications enable the creation and promotion of online social networking communities.

At Software Services UK, we make use of a host of technologies and techniques such as AJAX, CSS etc to develop Web 2.0 applications.