Web 2 and why?

Tim O'Reilly, who is credited with coining the term way back in 2004 says: "Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform".

Examples. Sites like eBay, Wikipedia and Google Adsense derive their effectiveness from the inter-human connections.

Bart Decrem, founder of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web".

The technologies encompassed by Web 2.0 include blogs, tags, RSS, social bookmarking and wikis. With Web 2.0 type-sites, it is possible to combine data from various sources, even sources that you don't own control or even exist, and turn that into data that people can use.

Web 2.0 is not just about technology. It's really about the users, the people.

Corporate Benefits:

Web 2.0 lets you share and incorporate multiple voices— your customers, your service reps, your employees—who quickly take the product, service, or idea in a direction that you could not alone.

Web 2.0 can help build your brands, reach out to the users, engage them with your brand, and help establish loyalty.

EXAMPLE - Infogain, says: "We expect to leverage the power of collaboration by getting innovative ideas from individuals, who are free to send theirtechnology/business ideas to the our CTO office directly."

Risks - Data privacy, application security, information integrity and information silos. There is a chance that inaccurate, or occasionally even offensive, information may get out.