The internet is a vast ocean of data, networks, people and creativity.
Looking back just a decade or two, the internet was a messy toddler and not many made attempts to clean it up. But that changed very quickly. With the transition from the “internet” to the “web” groups started coming together and organizing information, creating standards for website architecture and viewing the internet as a creative medium rather than just an information database. Within a few years we’ve gone from initial, vague standards for how a website should look and function, to a set up very specific and detailed standards that almost everyone follows. The transition into Web 2.0 is a tidal wave that the best of web developers are looking to ride! So let’s dive in and analyze what the new trends are of Web 2.0 and how we can be among the first setting standards and transitioning to 2.0…

So what is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a term referring to the collective trends that web designers and developers follow utilizing newer technologies and ideas.

What technologies are used in 2.0?

To target specific technologies that are a part of Web 2.0 would be to try and define what the trend itself is.
To put it simply, the technologies that are “2.0″ are the ones that aim to be fluid, futuristic, and user friendly. Good interface design and Graphic Design are two huge trends that are vastly improving the web and are paving the way for new standards for how a website should look and feel.

Aside from the vague idea of new = 2.0, one technology that is quickly becoming popular is Javascript Animation and AJAX. AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) isn’t so much a new technology or language but rather it’s simply more developed and supported by browsers. Many developers have joined together to further the simplicity of these technologies by offering libraries to do the complex work with a few simple commands. Lightbox, JQuery, Dojo, MooTools, Prototype, etc are all such libraries that focus to offer the developer a set of tools for animating and communicating via Javascript. Most sites that claim to be 2.0 are using some sort of AJAX or animation usually formed with one of such libraries.

Symantic Markup and Data Formatting are two more pieces that play major roles in the history and future of the web. Data formatting is a standard for how to structure data so that Web Browsers and the user and read the content more easily, as well as creating a structure that can be indexed by the computer.
Essentially data formatting is the process for marking up content so that a computer and user can more easily separate and organize data. Common data formats are Microformats, XML (eXtended Markup Language) XHTML (XML and HTML), and JSON (Javascript Object Notation). Microformats and Symantic Markup aim to serve content to search engines, browsers, databases and front-end technologies so that the computer can automate and organize work as well as format the content in a clear and concise manner.
These technologies are crucial to the web and information architecture.

Tagged as Frameworks, Microformats, Semantic Markup, Web 2.0 + Categorized as Wiki