Web 2.0

What is it?
Web 2.0 is a second generation of the World Wide Web. The web hasnt changed, although the way it's used is. It now allows users to interact and collaborate with eachother and online to those around the world (this is called user generator content). This is used mainly for marketing; as well as allowing the public to blog, post videos on YouTube, speak to friends across the world using Skype, Tweet and create pages of information on Wikipedia.


Pros:

• Information is easily located from numerous places, and is personalised to meet the user’s needs.
• Better decisions are made due to the information being located from multiple sources.
• People are able to express their ideas easily, without the oversight of governments or corporations. They are unrestricted
• Web 2.0 allows the mass population to communicate with each other easily around the world at a very low cost, such as on Skype, Twitter and Facebook.

Cons:

• People become very dependent on the internet for communication and information.
• Many web services are free, which means they won’t be secure and can easily be hacked.
• Many things are no longer kept in hard copy form. This is worrying as your hard drive is sometimes unreliable, which means you could lose many years of work in one moment.
• Some users share copyrighted information. Videos, music and movies are main victims of privacy, leading to a loss of profit for those who deserve it.

A digital native- someone who has grown up around technology.

A digital immigrant- someone born before technology and has adopted it to some extent in their later life.