Three Web 2.0 Concepts

On today’s list, we have three web 2.0 concepts. These are Rich Internet Applications (RIA)’s, a Web Oriented Architecture (WOA), and a Social Web.

RIA’s

RIA’s are applications that are developed to be used over the web however, even though they are being used in a browser they still exhibit traits that traditional desktop applications possess (Kay, 2009). They are designed around creating a better experience and levels of interactivity for the user (Kay, 2009). For example, YouTube is an example of an RIA (Smith, 2013); RIA’s use the technology and tools behind the concept such as Asynchronous JavaScript And XML (AJAX) and Adobe Flash (Smith, 2013) to enhance the graphical aspects, play video and images and update separate parts of the webpage without having to reload it in entirety. Back in the day, you would have had to have some sort of media player installed and then load the file into the player; with web 2.0 and technologies, it is possible to watch videos in the browser with the added ability of leaving comments, making playlists and many other features that a traditional desktop installation of a media player could accomplish and some features it couldn’t. It makes for a more connected and immersive experience.

Some examples of Rich Internet Applications are:

Image Credit: Neil (2010), retrieved from https://uxmag.com/articles/rich-internet-application-screen-design

Web Oriented Architecture

Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) in essence, is all about making the most out of the interactions between server and the browser (LeonSoft Solutions, n.d.). Representational State Transfer (REST) methods, Plain Old XML (POX) (LeonSoft Solutions, n.d), AJAX and the like, provide the architecture that makes the RIA experience possible.

Here is an example of web-oriented architecture:

Image credit: Hinchcliffe (2009). Retrieved from https://image.slidesharecdn.com/cloudande2-0-connectingthedots-osconcloudsummit-2010-100720171250-phpapp01/95/cloud-and-e20-connecting-the-dots-oscon-cloud-summit-2010-15-728.jpg?cb=1279646042

The Social Web

The Social Web is an interesting concept because the web used to be used to send information from one place to another but web 2.0 evolved in such a way that by using the web and RIA’s you are also interacting with the internet as a whole; the internet now has a social aspect to it which is most predominately known by the use of RIA’s such as Facebook, Myspace etc. It is all about increasing the effectiveness of the interactions between the app and the user (Corelynx, n.d.). For example, imagine of you had an application that listed all of your friends, so you could message them quickly. Facebook is an RIA developed around this concept because now not only do you have web app that lists your friends and can message them, but you also have feeds coming in from different friends, you can create content for your page as well as get real-time status updates etc.; the message concept was expounded upon and improved to create an engaging and immersive experience for users. They key here is user generated content and interaction as with most everything involving web 2.0

Here is an example of the social web:

Image Credit: Facebook (2019). Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/

References

Corelynx. (n.d.). Web 2.0. Retrieved from https://www.corelynx.com/technology/web-2

Facebook. (2019). Homepage. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/

Hinchcliffe, D. (2009). [Image] A view of web-oriented architecture. Retrieved from https://image.slidesharecdn.com/cloudande2-0-connectingthedots-osconcloudsummit-2010-100720171250-phpapp01/95/cloud-and-e20-connecting-the-dots-oscon-cloud-summit-2010-15-728.jpg?cb=1279646042

Kay, R. (2009). RIA’s bring fast, dynamic interaction to previously static web pages. Retrieved from https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551058/networking/rich-internet-applications.html

LeonSoft Solutions. (n.d.). Rich Internet Applications. Retrieved from http://www.leonsoftsolutions.com/riaapplications.html#ria

Neil, T. (2010). Rich Internet Application Screen Design. Retrieved from https://uxmag.com/articles/rich-internet-application-screen-design

Smith, A. (2013). Rich Internet Applications: A brief look. Retrieved from https://www.hiddenbrains.com/blog/rich-internet-applications-a-brief-look.html