Chapter Five: Network Applications

Question One: Describe the underlying technologies, applications and types of Web sites that comprise Web 2.0.

Information technologies and application used by Web 2.0 sites include:

· Blogs and Blogging: A weblog is a personal website, open to the public, in which a site creator expresses his or her feelings or opinions

· Wikis: a web site that anyone can post material and make changes to other material

· RSS (Really Simple Syndication): RSS allows anyone to syndicate (publish) his or her blog, or any other content, to anyone who has an interest in subscribing. When changes are made, the subscribers get a notification of the changes and an idea of what the new content contains. The subscriber can click on a link that will take them to the full text of the new content.

· Podcasts and Videocasts: Podcasts are a digital audio file that is distributed over the web using RSS for playback on portable media players or personal computers. A videocast us the same as a podcast except that it is a digital video file.

· AJAX: A web development technique that allows portions of web pages to reload with fresh data instead of requiring the entire web page to reload. This process speeds up time and increases user satisfaction.

· Tagging: Keyword/ term used to describe pieces of information; users typically choose tags that are meaningful to them.

· Social Networking: Social networking sites provide an easy, interactive way to communicate and collaborate with others on the web.

· Aggregators: Websites that that provide collections of content from the web.

· Mashups: Websites that takes content from other websites and mixes them together to create a new kind of content.

Question Two: Describe the function of Web services.

Web services are self-contained, self-describing applications, delivered over the Internet, that user can select and combine through almost any device. By using a set of protocols and standards, these applications permit different systems to talk to one another (i.e. to share data and services) without requiring human beings to translate the conversations.

Question Three: Describe how you see Social Networking being used in Business.

Businesses can use social networking as an easy and interactive way to communicate and collaborate with consumers and suppliers. For example, social networking can be used as a marketing tool for the business through uploading content to the web in the form of texts, voice, images and videos.