Before reading the articles, my first thoughts on web 2.0 was the difference between myspace and facebook. Allowing amateur html coders to cover their myspace pages with tacky backgrounds and glitter blinkies to a clean and simplistic page to connect with friends.

After reading Tim O’Reilly’s article What Is Web 2.0, the comparison between myspace and facebook is a little different especially since myspace was part of the web 2.0 era. O’Reilly talks about how Google and other web services was the jump start to the web 2.o.

However, the potential of the web to deliver full scale applications didn’t hit the mainstream till Google introduced Gmail, quickly followed by Google Maps, web based applications with rich user interfaces and PC-equivalent interactivity. – Tim O’Reilly

Blogger was introduced in 1999 by co-founder Evan Williams, which was then bought by Google in 2003. Blogs are one of the most powerful tool a user can have on the internet without paying for a domain or not knowing a thing about scripting. Evan Williams, also co-founder of Twitter in 2007, is a micro-blogging platform which allows for users to send out short 140 character updates to all their followers. Twitter has changed the way we communicate to others and it allows informing the world about what everybody is talking about and to share news to millions with a single tweet.

aka digital storytelling.