At first we had the World Wide Web, or rather the “World Read Web”. Through the Internet, people were able to find, absorb, consume, and read information. This phase can be described as the visitor time, or the “read only website phase”.
In early 2000 came “blog” mania. Using the Internet, anybody in the world, without any technical skills was able to share what they were doing, thinking, liking, disliking etc. with the rest of the world. Most of the time, the blog was an individual initiative, only allowing some basic interaction like commenting on a post. However, the owner of the blog was still the centre of the site.
In 2004, the word “web 2.0” was used for the first time. This word was used to describe a new generation of websites. It gave birth to what are called “user content generated” websites.
At first, the most popular web 2.0 websites were very sophisticated tools, with many applications, but little content. But little, by little, web surfers began populating these websites and adding content giving birth to sites like “YouTube”(video sharing), “MySpace” (music profile and social sharing), “Facebook” (social networking), “Flickr” (photosharing), “Orkut” (social networking), “Delicious” (bookmark networking) and many more around the globe. These sites were “content user generated” websites. This means that the main editor/creator of these websites were the users. From basic surfers the visitors/readers became a USER and EDITOR of the website. In a few years, we went from the “World Read Web” to the “World Write Web”.
Today, through web 2.0, websites are moving in the direction of what is called “social networking websites”. In this kind of website (like Facebook, Orkut) the goal is to socialise, to make friends, to share common interests, activities and to share your network of friends. These sites do not really have a central structure, they are horizontal.
There are some basic requirements to be classified as a social networking website. These sites need the following features: a blog, a forum discussion, individual profiles, making friends, sharing files, sharing photos, sharing webpages, tags (keywords to categorise different posts), feed syndication (RSS). This last feature allows dynamic bookmarking, this means that every time something is posted you receive an alert in your RSS reader programme.
Exploring further into Social Network Sites, their definition, and history
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