Web 2.0 // “The Meta-Meme or The Present-Future of the Web”

Travis Steven Stiles

Digital Media Studies / DMST4100

University of Denver

10.17.05

This is an overview of the principles and practices of “Web 2.0”. It is entitled “The Meta-Meme or The Present-Future of the Web” because of the idea that the meme, “a sort of self-propagating unit of cultural evolution” of Web 2.0 is overarching many other sub-ideas about the web in its present uses and potential future uses. The research presented here describes the current memes (evolving ideas) of what “Web 2.0” is, what applications are using Web 2.0 principles, and what types of technologies are used within those different applications.

The content is distributed over a number of general Web 2.0 ideas: Web 2.0, Web Services, Collective Intelligence, Really Simple Syndication, Lightweight Programming, Rich User Experience, and Digital Lifestyle Aggregation (some terms borrowed from Tim O’Reilly’s recent article entitled “What is Web 2.0”).

In each section, each meme is discussed giving a brief overview, looking at a sample application, some technical aspects of the idea, and then providing a short list of further inquiries to consider.

Please refer to the Glossary for further definitions and the Works Cited for resources used and considered.

Please send any feedback or comments to Travis Stiles.

A list of terms discussed in the context of this document:

Memes Applications Technologies
  • collective intelligence
  • lightweight programming
  • live web
  • long tail
  • mashup
  • meme
  • open source
  • perpetual BETA
  • remixing content
  • syndication
  • tagging
  • trackback
  • users add value
  • web as a platform
  • web service
  • Amazon
  • Blogs
  • Flickr
  • Gmail
  • Google
  • Wikipedia
  • AJAX
  • CSS
  • MySQL
  • PHP
  • REST
  • SOAP
  • UDDI
  • XHTML
  • XML

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