Web 2.0: The Future Of The Internet

Web 2.0: The Future Of The Internet

by Tom Holen

You have probably heard people using the term web 2.0 before, but what exactly does it mean?

In a nutshell web 2.0 is a label given to the various upgrades that the internet has undergone, improving upon the static pages that were liberally sprinkled with hyperlinks. The term was coined in 1999, but didn't really see popular use until 2004.

Major tech companies are always trying to improve the usability and functionality of the web, and affect the experience of their users and customers.

So, what sort of standards and upgrades are coming to the net in the future?

The big one that is shaking things up right now is HTML5. A long needed update to the long standing HTML4. The new markup language added a ton of new features adding things like embedded video, interactive elements, 3D elements, geosyncing, and a myriad number of useful features for the web app designer.

HTML5 is a pretty suitable replacement for flash. HTML5 lacks some of the features that flash does but it more than makes up it for it in terms of it being lighter weight in memory usage and it has far better browser compatibility. With updates still going out for HTML5 the performance gap between the two is swiftly closing.

HTML5 also provides some exciting opportunities in the gaming space, as the language is capable of creating feature rich game engines that budding game designers can use to create in browser video games that comparable to ones that you may download and install to your hard drive. An example of such an engine would be Artillery. The team working on the engine is making a real time strategy game with it, but it the engine is capable of creating games in several different genres.

In other exciting web 2.0 technologies there is Dart. Its a scripting language that is attempting to replace JavaScript. Google's two main focuses right now for the language are to increase the amount of performance that you can get out it, and being adopted into browsers. Right now, Dart has score remarkably well in benchmarks used to test web applications, it however is still being held back by JavaScript. Because of a lack of browser compatibility the main bulk of the performance increase is lost due to the fact that Dart has to piggyback on JavaScript to run.