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Web Designing and Development

WebDevelopment TechPark has been working in the field of custom Web development since 2008. Our expert team has taken part in dozens of application development projects. We are experienced in developing advanced systems with complex business logic dealing with large amounts of data and transactions. We are able to supply you with an innovative, trustworthy software solution to complement your most complicated business ideas. Back-officeAdministration Depending on your requirements we can integrate different back-office management tools that will give you efficient control over various site operations. This may include non-technical content creation and publishing, dynamic structure generation, document management (incl. images, PDFs, video and audio files, etc), user management, access rights and permissions, business operations management (incl. clients, catalogs, payments, ExpertBack-end orders, etc.), site statistics module and others. Programming

Our specialists are able to create dynamic, highly interactive and functional websites, making cutting-edge technologies effectively back clean interfaces. We offer our clients a full spectrum of back-end development including dynamic page generation, database design and development (incl. database performance optimization and tuning), distributed database development for websites dealing with large amounts of data, data encryption, advanced search mechanism integration, built-in security, real-time payment processing, audio/video ApplicationServices ApplicationDevelopment Custom application development tailored to the clients specific business requirements. We deliver rich internet applications combining our solid cross-domain experience, technological expertise and an streaming, etc.

established porting, architecture requirements data Application migration,

development Migration standalone-to-web Reengineering new/enhanced business Audit usability and htmlL standards logic migration and of and and and compliance improved legacy

methodology. Porting applications. Enhancement performance. Testing testing and

Our migration services include porting applications to a new technology platform, database and server

Application and introduce Application verification, GUI

We provide reverse engineering of existing systems to understand their business functionality and technical

Independent software audit and testing of your web application including code reviews, functionality-toperformance/security/stability Application testing. Maintenance

Our web application maintenance and support services are aimed at ensuring stable and uninterrupted operation of your business system. The services include problems analysis, resolution and application enhancement. TechnicalExpertise TechPark specialists use up-to-date technologies and latest industry trends to deliver technically complex and yet easy-to-use solutions with the optimal cost/performance ratio.

Technologies our web development mastered in: VB.Net, C#.Net, ASP.Net, ADO.Net Ajax, Java Script, JQuery, XML ,Web services, .Net Remoting, Dot net Nuke, Windows Share point server, MOSS-2007, Bizz talk, Web Silver Light, Ms-Sql server 2005. Designing

TechPark provides professional website design and maintenance services. Our skilled web designers accomplish various website projects from brochure sites to multi-functional web portals. TechPark has a large pool of resources and the required business and technical expertise to designing of any complexity. We provide complete front-end and back-end design and development based on the latest technologies and industry Professional Look-and-Feel With the help of modern design tools our designers create appealing, exclusive designs that highlight your uniqueness and let you stand out from the crowd. Our designs combine: trends. Design

Appealing and professional style

Consistent overall layout Consistent corporate identity Colors compatibility Rational space usage

Usability Irrespective of the websites functional complexity we aim at keeping interfaces simple and easy-to-use. We pay attention to various aspects to ensure positive user experience:

User-friendly interface Intuitive navigational schemes AJAX-powered interactivity Task-oriented workflow Accessibility standards

Comprehensive Front-end

Functionality Functionality

Functionality is what turns your website from a "shop display" into a powerful business tool. By delivering custom-built solutions TechPark is able to provide the functionality that would completely match your actual business requirements. Modular approach to development allows us to expand the existing or add new functionality easily and cost-effectively when your business requirements change. As a result, you will receive the best return on investment into current solution and decrease your expenditure on future system extension. DueApproach Throughout the entire website development cycle we will help you define, conceptualize and implement your business web strategy in a cost-effective solution.

DueCommunication Effective communication is vital for success of any project. We at once establish a two-way knowledge transfer process that would let us, firstly, clearly understand client requirements, and secondly, provide a sound and transparent advice on technology and solution options. From the very beginning of development every project has a project manager involved. The client is able to solve all project related issues through a single person at TechPark. We use different communication means: e-mail, phone, instant messengers, Skype, as well as onsite visits, to secure the required level of communication.

DueProcess we have derived our development methodology from the best industry practices like RUP and Agile methodology. We follow a practical approach to development process. We know when to apply a lightweight approach for a small project to get the optimal cost-time balance. We also know how and are able to

expand it for a complex development project. But regardless of the applied process model all projects go through DueSolution by utilizing our extensive cross-domain expertise and technology competence we deliver the right solutions for specific situations. Prior to project implementation our analysts study your business requirements thoroughly. The detailed analysis allows us to define the appropriate approach, design consistent architecture and select the right tools and technologies taking into account the current needs and laying foundation DueQuality A dedicated Quality Assurance department is responsible for quality monitoring and testing at all stages of website development to ensure high quality of the final product. Verification includes various aspects of entire project including GUI testing and htmlL standards compliance, functionality-to-requirements conformity, Technical and yet easy-to-use solutions with the optimal cost/performance error-free coding, performance and stability testing. Expertise ratio. for future growth. stringent quality verification procedures.

TechPark specialists use up-to-date technologies and latest industry trends to deliver technically complex

Technologies our web designers mastered in: htmlL, XhtmlL, MYSQL, PHP, CSS hand-coding, AJAX, Flash, Ms-SQL, Photoshop-CS3, Dream weaver. Joomla, Majento, Zencart and all open sources.

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Web Application Development

Web Applications have transgressed geographical boundaries thanks to an ever evolving open global economy. Web apps, allows innovative bright ideas from varied sections of the globe to be floated across civilizations opening up new vistas to reach out and be recognized. Business ideas have never had more beneficial breeding grounds, than what is offered now, through progressive thinking applications. Web application packages

Platforms supporting B2B (Business to Business), B2C (Business to customer) and C2C (Customer to customer) frameworks provide accessibility to a varied set of applications ranging from simple ecommerce facilities to complicated stock broking or banking systems. Rapid and deep internet proliferation, across the globe, boosts the reach and impact of custom web application drastically.

TechPark focus on being proactive technical and functional Consultants to our clients by not merely delivering quality apps but exploiting our vast experience and expertise to comply it with the end users' needs. TechPark is a fully integrated IT consulting and web solutions provider, developing custom web applications, social platforms, online advertising platforms, web site development, desktop and console applications. Our team of experienced developers has been working relentlessly to serve our clients globally. We have a professional team of ASP.NET, PHP, C#, and Flash Programmers, who specialize in web application development. TechPark is a comprehensive IT solutions and services include Product Engineering, IT Consulting and Research & Development services to organizations and institutions globally. To know more about us and our processes, kindly visit our site at www.techparksolutions.com

Range of competitive offerings include:

IT Services and Consulting Product Engineering Research and development System application development

Advantages:

We offer consulting services through qualified resource team who work closely with our clients onsite. We specialize in developing effective Enterprise software applications. We offer onsite benefits at offshore costs. We offer specialized technical and business domain experts. We service a wide spectrum of vertical markets

Tech Park Solutions Focusing IT Forever

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Web Application Maintenance

Our application development team has programming experience in various domains is uniquely positioned to help you with your client server application development outsourcing and solutions. Client/Server applications have always played a key role in operation of businesses. The ability to input, process, store, and access data anytime, anywhere and via any device is powering eBusinesses of today. TechPark Services provides its customers offshore client server application development services, maintenance of legacy systems, web-enabling of client-server applications, application integration of new applications with client Our Application Application Managing the key & offshore hosting hosting continuity and server product & on resolving applications, maintenance hardware dedicated the hardware maintenance. services: maintenance server issues

ApplicationContinuityManagement Availability=Management CapacityManagement SoftwareMaintenance Corrective incidents, Perfective Helpdesk Maintenance: anticipation, Maintenance: To resolve the corrective, and carry & out incidental issues and errors. Preventive Maintenance: To plan and implement the action to avoid future problems based upon past feedback To continuous functional improvement. modifications. support Adaptive Maintenance: adoptions are made to the application as a result of external factors.

Settling the RFC's (Request for change) based on the priority through Corrective, Preventive, Adaptive and Perfective maintenance. Receipt, acknowledgement, distribution, plan closer of issue / RFC registered by user. Responsibility will be carried out by Issue coordinator.

For issues communication various tools including Client's application, e-Mail will be used. (3rd level: answer questions and resolve technical issues reported by client personnel).

Detailed coverage of following activity makes our maintenance service as a unique offering: IncidentManagement Modificationmanagement Maintenanceandrenewal Configurationcontrol Programmanagementanddistribution

Dedicatedteamsupport Lowercostresources Focus Rapid Legacy Component Support to time on to core realize and activity time to with market product and platform multiple the in-house software team. product. maintenance upgradation versions

TechPark signs a detailed service level agreement (SLA) for software maintenance services for: software development

Localization and customization of core products.

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SEO & SEM

SEO We have designed flexible Search Engine Optimization packages for our business clients offering a value proposition. Following are the descriptive details of TechPark price packages that you can opt from: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Basic Package Intermediate Package Advance Package Project Based Package Comprehensive Project Based Package

Basic practices that TechPark provide. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Keyword Research and Optimization Meta Tags Development Content Optimization Alt tags optimization Internal linking structure optimization

Package

You reached us. Now, let your users reach you. SEO services are a set of methods, processes and

IntermediatePackage You reached us. Now, let your users reach you. SEO services are a set of methods, processes and practices that TechPark provide. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Keyword Research and Optimization (Targeted number of keywords and phrases). Meta Tags Development. Content Optimization. Alt tags optimization. Internal linking structure optimization.

AdvancePackage You reached us. Now, let your users reach you. SEO services are a set of methods, processes and practices that TechPark provide. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Keyword Research and Optimization (Targeted number of keywords and phrases). Meta Tags Development Content Optimization Alt tags optimization Internal linking structure optimization

Project

Based

Package

This is a consultative contract based service that TechPark provides. The deliverable includes 5 meetings of 1 hour of our consultation each month for 3 months and a single report, delivered 30 days after contract signing, containing the following elements:

Keyword Research & Recommendations - what keywords will pull in qualified traffic, how many searches do these terms/phrases get, how keywords should be used in the site to attract search traffic. Review of Search Engine Friendliness Issues - URLs, KW Usage, Code, Internal Linking, Metadata, and Sitemap Use.

Competitive Analysis - who's currently chasing traffic for their terms or targeting the audience they want, what are these sites doing right or wrong.

Design, Usability & User Experience Suggestions - to help improve the way visitors perceive/use the site, and make it more attractive.

Content Creation Suggestions - what kinds of content would be valuable to add to the site to attract additional traffic and convert existing users, are there potentials for Link bait.

Link Acquisition Suggestions - a list of some great places to start requesting/buying/building links and ongoing Comprehensive strategies for Project a Based link campaign. Package

This is a highly consultative contract based service that TechPark provides. The full project will require 7 12 months of effort, followed by 3 months of additional consultation and assistance with implementing ongoing ideas/projects.

Keyword Research & Recommendations - what keywords will pull in qualified traffic, how many searches do these terms/phrases get, how keywords should be used in the site to attract search traffic. New Design for the Site - using CSS and some gorgeous graphics to help them accomplish the design bait process. Information Architecture - designing the content flow and wire framing the various site components that will encompass the usability, user experience & design suggestions.

New Content Components - including, most likely, a blog, a more in-depth tour and many other items. Construction of the site Programming, CSS, CMS, domain canonicalization, etc..

SEO & Keyword Targeting - Figuring out where and how to use relevant keywords to draw in search traffic, optimizing SEM Search Engine Marketing What is SEM? Why SEM? SEM Advantage? To answer your SEM questions let's find out how long is your online tail - the TechPark way of SEM solution is designed to drive traffic and conversions at the time your prospects or customers are looking for you. We can help you develop and place search ads. Our service generates traffic to attract more customers to your site with an ability to track conversions that will help in working out ROI for your business using: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Pay per Click Management Lead Generation Campaigns Google Ad Words Google Analytics Yahoo and MSN search campaigns Keyword and Competitor Analysis pages for search engines, etc.

What

do

we

offer?

An opportunity to position your brand in front of your customers through: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Account creation across Google, Yahoo!, and MSN search engines Keyword research and run campaign Ad copy creation and placement Maintenance of keyword auctions Bid optimizations Reporting

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Cascading Style Sheets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from CSS)

"CSS" redirects here. For other uses, see CSS (disambiguation). For the use of CSS on Wikipedia, see Help:Cascading style sheets.

Cascading Style Sheets

Filename extension

.css text/css

Internet media type

Developed by

World Wide Web Consortium

Initial release

17 December 1996; 13 years ago

Type of format

Style sheet language

Standard(s)

Level 1 (Recommendation) Level 2 (Recommendation) Level 2 Revision 1 (Candidate Recommendation)

Cascading Style Sheets

CSS Animations

Dynamic CSS Comparison of layout engines Comparison of stylesheet languages Internet Explorer box model bug CSS Zen Garden

CSSTidy

The Zen of CSS Design

Style sheet Tableless web design

WikiBooks: Cascading Style Sheets

This box: view talk edit

HTML

HTML and HTML5 Dynamic HTML XHTML XHTML Mobile Profile and C-HTML Canvas element Character encodings Document Object Model Font family HTML editor HTML element HTML Frames HTML5 video

HTML scripting Web browser engine Quirks mode Style sheets Unicode and HTML W3C and WHATWG Web colors WebGL Web Storage Comparison of document markup languages web browsers layout engines for HTML HTML5 HTML5 Canvas HTML5 Media Non-standard HTML XHTML
This box: view talk edit

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind ofXML document, including SVG and XUL. CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation, including elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts.[citation needed] This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as by allowing for tableless web design). CSS can also allow the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on Braille-based, tactile devices. While the author of a document typically links

that document to a CSS style sheet, readers can use a different style sheet, perhaps one on their own computer, to override the one the author has specified. CSS specifies a priority scheme to determine which style rules apply if more than one rule matches against a particular element. In this so-calledcascade, priorities or weights are calculated and assigned to rules, so that the results are predictable. The CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Internet media type (MIME type) text/css is registered for use with CSS by RFC 2318 (March 1998). The popularity of CSS as a design tool has increased steadily and is now regarded as the premier system for website design.[citation needed]

Contents
[hide]

o o o o

1 Syntax 1.1 Use 1.2 Sources 2 History 2.1 Difficulty with adoption 2.2 Variations

o o o o o o o
3 Browser support 4 Limitations 5 Advantages

2.2.1 CSS 1 2.2.2 CSS 2 2.2.3 CSS 3

5.1 Flexibility 5.2 Separation of content from presentation 5.3 Site-wide consistency 5.4 Bandwidth 5.5 Page reformatting 6 CSS framework 7 Positioning 7.1 Position: top, bottom, left, and right 7.2 Float and clear 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

[edit]Syntax
CSS has a simple syntax and uses a number of English keywords to specify the names of various style properties.

A style sheet consists of a list of rules. Each rule or rule-set consists of one or more selectors and a declaration block. A declaration-block consists of a list of declarations in braces. Each declaration itself consists of a property, a colon (:), a value, then a semi-colon (;).[1] In CSS, selectors are used to declare which of the markup elements a style applies to, a kind of match expression. Selectors may apply to all elements of a specific type, or only those elements that match a certain attribute; elements may be matched depending on how they are placed relative to each other in the markup code, or on how they are nested within the document object model. Pseudo-classes are another form of specification used in CSS to identify markup elements, and in some cases, specific user actions to which a particular declaration block applies. An often-used example is the :hover pseudo-class that applies a style only when the user 'points to' the visible element, usually by holding the mouse cursor over it. It is appended to a selector as in a:hover or #elementid:hover. Other pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements are, for example, :first-line, :visited or :before. A special pseudo-class is :lang(c), "c". A pseudo-class selects entire elements, such as :link or :visited, whereas a pseudoelement makes a selection that may consist of partial elements, such as :first-line or :first-

letter.
Selectors may be combined in other ways too, especially in CSS 2.1, to achieve greater specificity and flexibility.[2] Here is an example summing up the rules above: selector [, selector2, ...][:pseudo-class] { property: value; [property2: value2; ...] } /* comment */

[edit]Use
Prior to CSS, nearly all of the presentational attributes of HTML documents were contained within the HTML markup; all font colors, background styles, element alignments, borders and sizes had to be explicitly described, often repeatedly, within the HTML. CSS allows authors to move much of that information to a separate style sheet resulting in considerably simpler HTML markup. Headings (h1 elements), sub-headings (h2), sub-sub-headings (h3), etc., are defined structurally using HTML. In print and on the screen, choice of font, size,color and emphasis for these elements is presentational.

Prior to CSS, document authors who wanted to assign such typographic characteristics to, say, all h2 headings had to use the HTML font and other presentational elements for each occurrence of that heading type. The additional presentational markup in the HTML made documents more complex, and generally more difficult to maintain. In CSS, presentation is separated from structure. In print, CSS can define color, font, text alignment, size, borders, spacing, layout and many other typographic characteristics. It can do so independently for on-screen and printed views. CSS also defines nonvisual styles such as the speed and emphasis with which text is read out by aural text readers. The W3C now considers the advantages of CSS for defining all aspects of the presentation of HTML pages to be superior to other methods. It has therefore deprecated the use of all the original presentational HTML markup.

[edit]Sources
CSS information can be provided by various sources. CSS style information can be either attached as a separate document or embedded in the HTML document. Multiple style sheets can be imported. Different styles can be applied depending on the output device being used; for example, the screen version can be quite different from the printed version, so that authors can tailor the presentation appropriately for each medium. Priority scheme for CSS sources (from highest to lowest priority):

Author styles (provided by the web page author), in the form of:

Inline styles, inside the HTML document, style information on a single element,

specified using the "style" attribute

Embedded style, blocks of CSS information inside the HTML itself External style sheets, i.e., a separate CSS file referenced from the document

User style:

A local CSS file the user specifies with a browser option, which acts as an override

applied to all documents

User agent style

Default styles applied by the user agent, i.e., the browser's default settings for

element presentation The style sheet with the highest priority controls the content display. Declarations not set in the highest priority source are passed on by a source of lower priority such as the user agent style. This process is called cascading.

One of the goals of CSS is also to allow users greater control over presentation. Someone who finds red italic headings difficult to read may apply a different style sheet. Depending on their browser and the web site, a user may choose from various style sheets provided by the designers, may remove all added style and view the site using the browser's default styling, or may override just the red italic heading style without altering other attributes. File highlightheaders.css containing: h1 { color: white; background-color: orange !important; } h2 { color: white; background-color: green !important; } Such a file is stored locally and is applicable if that has been specified in the browser options. "! important" means that it prevails over the author specifications.

[edit]History
Style sheets have existed in one form or another since the beginnings of SGML in the 1970s. Cascading Style Sheets were developed as a means for creating a consistent approach to providing style information for web documents. As HTML grew, it came to encompass a wider variety of stylistic capabilities to meet the demands of web developers. This evolution gave the designer more control over site appearance but at the cost of HTML becoming more complex to write and maintain. Variations in web browser implementations i.e. ViolaWWW and WorldWideWeb[3] made consistent site appearance difficult, and users had less control over how web content was displayed. Robert Cailliau wanted to separate the structure from the presentation.[3] The ideal way would be to give the user different options and transferring three different kinds of style sheets: one for printing, one for the presentation on the screen and one for the editor feature.[3] To improve web presentation capabilities, nine different style sheet languages were proposed to the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) www-style mailing list. Of the nine proposals, two were chosen as the foundation for what became CSS: Cascading HTML Style Sheets (CHSS) and Streambased Style Sheet Proposal (SSP). CHSS, a language that has some resemblance to today's CSS, was proposed by Hkon Wium Lie in October 1994. Bert Bos was working on a browser called Argo, which used its own style sheet language the SSP.[4] Lie and Yves Lafon joined Dave Raggett to expand the Arena browser for supporting CSS as a testbed application for the W3C.[5][6][7] Lie and Bos worked together to develop the CSS standard (the 'H' was removed from the name because these style sheets could also be applied to other markup languages besides HTML).[8]

Unlike existing style languages like DSSSL and FOSI, CSS allowed a document's style to be influenced by multiple style sheets. One style sheet could inherit or "cascade" from another, permitting a mixture of stylistic preferences controlled equally by the site designer and user. Lie's proposal was presented at the "Mosaic and the Web" conference (later called WWW2) in Chicago, Illinois in 1994, and again with Bert Bos in 1995.[8] Around this time the W3C was already being established, and took an interest in the development of CSS. It organized a workshop toward that end chaired by Steven Pemberton. This resulted in W3C adding work on CSS to the deliverables of the HTML editorial review board (ERB). Lie and Bos were the primary technical staff on this aspect of the project, with additional members, including Thomas Reardon of Microsoft, participating as well. In August 1996 Netscape Communication Corporation presented an alternative style sheet language called JavaScript Style Sheets (JSSS).[8] The spec was never finished and is deprecated.[9] By the end of 1996, CSS was ready to become official, and the CSS level 1 Recommendation was published in December. Development of HTML, CSS, and the DOM had all been taking place in one group, the HTML Editorial Review Board (ERB). Early in 1997, the ERB was split into three working groups: HTML Working group, chaired by Dan Connolly of W3C; DOM Working group, chaired by Lauren Wood of SoftQuad; and CSS Working group, chaired by Chris Lilley of W3C. The CSS Working Group began tackling issues that had not been addressed with CSS level 1, resulting in the creation of CSS level 2 on November 4, 1997. It was published as a W3C Recommendation on May 12, 1998. CSS level 3, which was started in 1998, is still under development as of 2009. In 2005 the CSS Working Groups decided to enforce the requirements for standards more strictly. This meant that already published standards like CSS 2.1, CSS 3 Selectors and CSS 3 Text were pulled back from Candidate Recommendation to Working Draft level.

[edit]Difficulty

with adoption

Although the CSS1 specification was completed in 1996 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3[8] was released in that year featuring some limited support for CSS, it was more than three years before any web browser achieved near-full implementation of the specification. Internet Explorer 5.0 for the Macintosh, shipped in March 2000, was the first browser to have full (better than 99 percent) CSS1 support[citation needed], surpassing Opera, which had been the leader since its introduction of CSS support 15 months earlier. Other browsers followed soon afterwards, and many of them additionally implemented parts of CSS2. As of August 2010, no (finished) browser has fully implemented CSS2, with implementation levels varying (see Comparison of layout engines (CSS)).

Even though early browsers such as Internet Explorer 3[8] and 4, and Netscape 4.x had support for CSS, it was typically incomplete and afflicted with serious bugs. This was a serious obstacle for the adoption of CSS. When later 'version 5' browsers began to offer a fairly full implementation of CSS, they were still incorrect in certain areas and were fraught with inconsistencies, bugs and other quirks. The proliferation of such CSS-related inconsistencies and even the variation in feature support has made it difficult for designers to achieve a consistent appearance across platforms. Some authors resorted toworkarounds such as CSS hacks and CSS filters to obtain consistent results across web browsers and platforms. Problems with browsers' patchy adoption of CSS along with errata in the original specification led the W3C to revise the CSS2 standard into CSS2.1, which moved nearer to a working snapshot of current CSS support in HTML browsers. Some CSS2 properties that no browser successfully implemented were dropped, and in a few cases, defined behaviors were changed to bring the standard into line with the predominant existing implementations. CSS2.1 became a Candidate Recommendation on February 25, 2004, but CSS2.1 was pulled back to Working Draft status on June 13, 2005,[10]and only returned to Candidate Recommendation status on July 19, 2007.[11] In the past, some web servers were configured to serve all documents with the filename extension .css[12] as mime type application/x-pointplus[13] rather than text/css. At the time, the Net-Scene company was selling PointPlus Maker to convert PowerPoint files into Compact Slide Show files (using a .css extension).[14]

[edit]Variations
CSS has various levels and profiles. Each level of CSS builds upon the last, typically adding new features and typically denoted as CSS1, CSS2, and CSS3. Profiles are typically a subset of one or more levels of CSS built for a particular device or user interface. Currently there are profiles for mobile devices, printers, and television sets. Profiles should not be confused with media types, which were added in CSS2.

[edit]CSS 1
The first CSS specification to become an official W3C Recommendation is CSS level 1, published in December 1996.[15] Among its capabilities are support for:

Font properties such as typeface and emphasis Color of text, backgrounds, and other elements Text attributes such as spacing between words, letters, and lines of text

Alignment of text, images, tables and other elements Margin, border, padding, and positioning for most elements Unique identification and generic classification of groups of attributes

The W3C no longer maintains the CSS1 Recommendation.[16]

[edit]CSS 2
CSS level 2 was developed by the W3C and published as a Recommendation in May 1998. A superset of CSS1, CSS2 includes a number of new capabilities like absolute, relative, and fixed positioning of elements and z-index, the concept of media types, support for aural style sheets and bidirectional text, and new font properties such as shadows. The W3C maintains the CSS2 Recommendation.[17] CSS level 2 revision 1 or CSS 2.1 fixes errors in CSS2, removes poorly-supported features and adds already-implemented browser extensions to the specification. While it was a Candidate Recommendation for several months, on June 15, 2005 it was reverted to a working draft for further review.[18] It was returned to Candidate Recommendation status on 19 July 2007.

[edit]CSS 3
CSS level 3 has been under development since December 15, 2005.[19][20] The W3C maintains a CSS3 progress report. CSS3 is modularized and consists of several separate recommendations. The W3C CSS3 Roadmap provides a summary and introduction.[21]

[edit]Browser

support

Further information: Comparison of layout engines (Cascading Style Sheets) Because not all browsers comply identically with CSS code, a coding technique known as a CSS filter can be used to show or hide parts of the CSS to different browsers, either by exploiting CSShandling quirks or bugs in the browser, or by taking advantage of lack of support for parts of the CSS specifications.[22] Using CSS filters, some designers have gone as far as delivering different CSS to certain browsers to ensure designs render as expected. Because very early web browsers were either completely incapable of handling CSS, or render CSS very poorly, designers today often routinely use CSS filters that completely prevent these browsers from accessing any of the CSS. Internet Explorer support for CSS began with IE 3.0 and increased progressively with each version. By 2008, the first Beta of Internet Explorer 8 offered support for CSS 2.1 in its best web standards mode. An example of a well-known CSS browser bug is the Internet Explorer box model bug, where box widths are interpreted incorrectly in several versions of the browser, resulting in blocks that are too narrow when viewed in Internet Explorer, but correct in standards-compliant browsers. The bug can be

avoided in Internet Explorer 6 by using the correct doctype in (X)HTML documents. CSS hacks and CSS filters are used to compensate for bugs such as this, just one of hundreds of CSS bugs that have been documented in various versions of Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer (including Internet Explorer 7).[23][24] Even when the availability of CSS-capable browsers made CSS a viable technology, the adoption of CSS was still held back by designers' struggles with browsers' incorrect CSS implementation and patchy CSS support. Even today, these problems continue to make the business of CSS design more complex and costly than it was intended to be, and cross-browser testing remains a necessity. Other reasons for continuing non-adoption of CSS are: its perceived complexity, authors' lack of familiarity with CSS syntax and required techniques, poor support from authoring tools, the risks posed by inconsistency between browsers and the increased costs of testing. Currently there is strong competition between Mozilla's Gecko layout engine used in Firefox, the WebKit layout engine used in Apple Safari and Google Chrome, the similar KHTML engine used inKDE's Konqueror browser, and Opera's Presto layout engineeach of them is leading in different aspects of CSS. As of August 2009, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 2 and 3 have reasonably complete levels of implementation of CSS 2.1.[25]

[edit]Limitations This article's Criticism or Controversy section(s) may mean the article does not present a neutral point of view of the subject. It may be better to integrate the material in those sections into the article as a whole. (October
2009)

This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (March 2009)
Some noted disadvantages of using "pure" CSS include: Poor layout controls for flexible layouts While new additions to CSS3 provide a stronger, more robust layout feature-set, CSS is still very much rooted as a styling language, not a layout language. This problem has also meant that creating fluid layouts is still very much done by hand-coding CSS, and make the development of a standards-based WYSIWYG editor more difficult than expected. Selectors are unable to ascend CSS offers no way to select a parent or ancestor of an element that satisfies certain criteria. A more advanced selector scheme (such as XPath) would enable more sophisticated style sheets. However, the major reasons for the CSS Working Group rejecting proposals for parent selectors are related to browser performance and incremental rendering issues.

Vertical control limitations While horizontal placement of elements is generally easy to control, vertical placement is frequently unintuitive, convoluted, or impossible. Simple tasks, such as centering an element vertically or getting a footer to be placed no higher than bottom of viewport, either require complicated and unintuitive style rules, or simple but widely unsupported rules.[clarification needed] Absence of expressions There is currently no ability to specify property values as simple expressions (such as margin-left: 10% - 3em + 4px;). This would be useful in a variety of cases, such as calculating the size of columns subject to a constraint on the sum of all columns. However, a working draft with a calc() value to address this limitation has been published by the CSS WG.[26] Internet Explorer versions 5 to 7 support a proprietary expression() statement,[27] with similar functionality. This proprietary expression() statement is no longer supported from Internet Explorer 8 onwards, except in compatibility modes. This decision was taken for "standards compliance, browser performance, and security reasons".[27] Lack of column declaration While possible in current CSS, layouts with multiple columns can be complex to implement. With the current CSS, the process is often done using floating elements, which are often rendered differently by different browsers, different computer screen shapes, and different screen ratios set on standard monitors. Cannot explicitly declare new scope independently of position Scoping rules for properties such as z-index look for the closest parent element with a position:absolute or position:relative attribute. This odd coupling has undesired effects such as it is impossible to avoid declaring a new scope when one is forced to adjust an element's position, preventing one from using the desired scope of a parent element. Pseudo-class dynamic behavior not controllable CSS implements pseudo-classes that allow a degree of user feedback by conditional application of alternate styles. One CSS pseudo-class, ":hover", is dynamic (equivalent of javascript "onMouseOver") and has potential for abuse (e.g., implementing cursor-proximity popups),[28] but CSS has no ability for a client to disable it (no "disable"-like property) or limit its effects (no "nochange"-like values for each property).

[edit]Advantages [edit]Flexibility
By combining CSS with the functionality of a Content Management System, a considerable amount of flexibility can

be programmed into content submission forms. This allows a contributor, who may not be familiar or able to understand or edit CSS or HTML code to select the layout of an article or other page they are submitting on-the-fly, in the same form. For instance, a contributor, editor or author of an article or page might be able to select the number of columns and whether or not the page or article carries an image. This information is then passed to the Content Management System, and the program logic evaluates the information and determines, based on a certain number of combinations, how to apply classes and IDs to the HTML elements, therefore styling and positioning them according to the pre-defined CSS for that particular layout type. When working with large-scale, complex sites, with many contributors such as news and informational sites, this advantage weighs heavily on the feasibility and maintenance of the project.

[edit]Separation

of content from

presentation
CSS facilitates publication of content in multiple presentation formats based on nominal parameters. Nominal parameters include explicit user preferences, different web browsers, the type of device being used to view the content (a desktop computer or mobile Internet device), the geographic location of the user and many other variables.

[edit]Site-wide

consistency

Main articles: Separation of presentation and content and Style sheet (web development) When CSS is used effectively, in terms of inheritance and "cascading," a global style sheet can be used to affect and style elements site-wide. If the situation arises that the styling of the elements should need to be changed or adjusted, these changes can be made easily, simply by editing a few rules in the global style sheet. Before CSS, this sort of maintenance was more difficult, expensive and time-consuming.

[edit]Bandwidth
A style sheet is usually stored in the browser cache, and can therefore be used on multiple pages without being reloaded, reducing data transfer over a network.

[edit]Page

reformatting

Main article: Progressive enhancement With a simple change of one line, a different style sheet can be used for the same page. This has advantages for accessibility, as well as providing the ability to tailor a page or site to different target devices. Furthermore, devices not able to understand the styling still display the content.

[edit]CSS

framework

A CSS framework is a pre-prepared library that is meant to allow for easier, more standards-compliant styling of web pages using the Cascading Style Sheets language. Like programming and scripting language libraries, CSS frameworks are usually incorporated as external .css sheets referenced in the HTML <head>. They provide a number of ready-made options for designing and laying out the web page. While many of these frameworks have been published, some authors use them mostly for rapid prototyping, or for learning from, and prefer to 'handcraft' CSS that is appropriate to each published site without the design, maintenance and download overhead of having many unused features in the site's styling.[29]

[edit]Positioning
CSS 2.1 defines three positioning schemes: Normal flow Inline items are laid out in the same way as the letters in words in text, one after the other across the available space until there is no more room, then starting a new line below. Block items stack vertically, like paragraphs and like the items in a bulleted list. Normal flow also includes relative positioning of block or inline items, and run-in boxes.

Floats A floated item is taken out of the normal flow and shifted to the left or right as far as possible in the space available. Other content then flows alongside the floated item. Absolute positioning An absolutely positioned item has no place in, and no effect on, the normal flow of other items. It occupies its assigned position in its container independently of other items.[30]

[edit]Position:

top, bottom, left,

and right
There are four possible values of the position property. If an item is positioned in any way other than static, then the further properties top, bottom, left, and right are used to specify offsets and positions. Static The default value places the item in the normal flow Relative The item is placed in the normal flow, and then shifted or offset from that position. Subsequent flow items are laid out as if the item had not been moved Absolute Specifies absolute positioning Fixed The item is absolutely positioned in a fixed position on the screen even as the rest of the document is scrolled[30]

[edit]Float

and

clear
The float property may have one of three values. Absolutely pos itioned or fixed items cannot be floated. Other elements normally flow around

floated items, unless they are prevented from doing so by their clear property. left Floats to the left of the line that it would have appeared in; other items may flow around its right side right Floats to the right of the line that it would have appeared in; other items may flow around its left side none Removes the float property from

Web 2.0
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs attention from an expert on the subject. See the talk page for details. Consider associating this request with aWikiProject.

A tag cloud (a typical Web 2.0 phenomenon in itself) presenting Web 2.0 themes

The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design,[1] and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them.

Examples of Web 2.0 include social-networking sites,blogs, wikis, video-sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies. The term is closely associated with Tim O'Reilly because of the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.[2][3] Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web. Whether Web 2.0 is qualitatively different from prior web technologies has been challenged by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, who called the term a "piece of jargon",[4] precisely because he intended the Web in his vision as "a collaborative medium, a place where we [could] all meet and read and write". He called it the 'Read/Write Web'.[5]
Contents
[hide]

o o o

1 History 2 Characteristics 3 Technologies 4 Concepts 5 Usage 6 Web-based applications and desktops 6.1 Internet applications 7 Distribution of Media 7.1 XML and RSS 7.2 Web APIs 8 Criticism 9 Trademark 10 Web 3.0 11 See also 12 References 13 External links

[edit]History
The term "Web 2.0" was coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci, a consultant on electronic information design (information architecture). In her article, "Fragmented Future", DiNucci writes:[6][7][8]

The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfulls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. The Web will be understood not as screenfulls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens. It will [...] appear on your computer screen, [...] on your TV set [...] your car dashboard [...] your cell phone [...] hand-held game machines [...] maybe even your microwave oven. Her use of the term deals mainly with Web design, aesthetics, and the interconnection of everyday objects with the Internet; she argues that the Web is "fragmenting" due to the widespread use of portable Web-ready devices. Her article is aimed at designers, reminding them to code for an everincreasing variety of hardware. As such, her use of the term hints at, but does not directly relate to, the current uses of the term. The term Web 2.0 did not resurface until 2003.[9][10][11][12] These authors focus on the concepts currently associated with the term where, as Scott Dietzen puts it, "the Web becomes a universal, standardsbased integration platform".[11] John Robb wrote: "What is Web 2.0? It is a system that breaks with the old model of centralized Web sites and moves the power of the Web/Internet to the desktop."[12] In 2004, the term began its rise in popularity when O'Reilly Media and MediaLive hosted the first Web 2.0 conference. In their opening remarks, John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly outlined their definition of the "Web as Platform", where software applications are built upon the Web as opposed to upon the desktop. The unique aspect of this migration, they argued, is that "customers are building your business for you".[13] They argued that the activities of users generating content (in the form of ideas, text, videos, or pictures) could be "harnessed" to create value. O'Reilly and Battelle contrasted Web 2.0 with what they called "Web 1.0". They associated Web 1.0 with the business models of Netscape and the Encyclopdia Britannica Online. For example, Netscape framed "the web as platform" in terms of the old software paradigm: their flagship product was the web browser, a desktop application, and their strategy was to use their dominance in the browser market to establish a market for high-priced server products. Control over standards for displaying content and applications in the browser would, in theory, give Netscape the kind of market power enjoyed by Microsoft in the PC market. Much like the "horseless carriage" framed the automobile as an extension of the familiar, Netscape promoted a "webtop" to replace the desktop, and planned to populate that webtop with information updates and applets pushed to the webtop by information providers who would purchase Netscape servers.[14] In short, Netscape focused on creating software, updating it on occasion, and distributing it to the end users. O'Reilly contrasted this with Google, a company which did not at the time focus on producing software, such as a browser, but instead focused on providing a service based on data such as the

links Web page authors make between sites. Google exploits this user-generated content to offer Web search based on reputation through its "page rank" algorithm. Unlike software, which undergoes scheduled releases, such services are constantly updated, a process called "the perpetual beta". A similar difference can be seen between the Encyclopedia Britannica Online and Wikipedia: while the Britannica relies upon experts to create articles and releases them periodically in publications, Wikipedia relies on trust in anonymous users to constantly and quickly build content. Wikipedia is not based on expertise but rather an adaptation of the open source software adage"given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow", and it produces and updates articles constantly. O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conferences have been held every year since 2004, attracting entrepreneurs, large companies, and technology reporters. In terms of the lay public, the term Web 2.0 was largely championed by bloggers and by technology journalists, culminating in the 2006 TIME magazine Person of The Year (You).[15] That is, TIMEselected the masses of users who were participating in content creation on social networks, blogs, wikis, and media sharing sites. The cover story author Lev Grossman explains: It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. Since that time, Web 2.0 has found a place in the lexicon; in 2009 Global Language Monitor declared it to be the one-millionth English word.[16]

[edit]Characteristics

Flickr, a Web 2.0 web site that allows its users to upload and share photos

Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. By increasing what was already possible in "Web 1.0", they provide the user with more user-interface, software and storage facilities, all through their browser. This has been called "Network as platform" computing.[3] Users can provide the data that is on a Web 2.0 site and exercise some control over that data.[3][17] These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.[2][3] The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web"[18] and regards the Web-asinformation-source as Web 1.0. The impossibility of excluding group-members who dont contribute to the provision of goods from sharing profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and free-ride on the contribution of others.[19] This requires what is sometimes called Radical Trustby the management of the website. According to Best,[20] the characteristics of Web 2.0 are: rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content,metadata, web standards and scalability. Further characteristics, such as openness, freedom[21] and collective intelligence[22] by way of user participation, can also be viewed as essential attributes of Web 2.0.

[edit]Technologies
The client-side/web browser technologies typically used in Web 2.0 development are Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax), Adobe Flash and the Adobe Flex framework, and JavaScript/Ajax frameworks such as Yahoo! UI Library, Dojo Toolkit, MooTools, and jQuery. Ajax programming uses JavaScript to upload and download new data from the web server without undergoing a full page reload. To allow users to continue to interact with the page, communications such as data requests going to the server are separated from data coming back to the page (asynchronously). Otherwise, the user would have to routinely wait for the data to come back before they can do anything else on that page, just as a user has to wait for a page to complete the reload. This also increases overall performance of the site, as the sending of requests can complete quicker independent of blocking and queueing required to send data back to the client. The data fetched by an Ajax request is typically formatted in XML or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format, two widely used structured data formats. Since both of these formats are natively understood by JavaScript, a programmer can easily use them to transmit structured data in their web application. When this data is received via Ajax, the JavaScript program then uses the Document Object Model (DOM) to dynamically update the web page based on the new data, allowing for a rapid

and interactive user experience. In short, using these techniques, Web designers can make their pages function like desktop applications. For example, Google Docs uses this technique to create a Web-based word processor. Adobe Flex is another technology often used in Web 2.0 applications. Compared to JavaScript libraries like jQuery, Flex makes it easier for programmers to populate large data grids, charts, and other heavy user interactions.[23] Applications programmed in Flex, are compiled and displayed as Flash within the browser. As a widely available plugin independent of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium, the governing body of web standards and protocols), standards, Flash is capable of doing many things which are not currently possible in HTML, the language used to construct web pages. Of Flash's many capabilities, the most commonly used in Web 2.0 is its ability to play audio and video files. This has allowed for the creation of Web 2.0 sites where video media is seamlessly integrated with standard HTML. In addition to Flash and Ajax, JavaScript/Ajax frameworks have recently become a very popular means of creating Web 2.0 sites. At their core, these frameworks do not use technology any different from JavaScript, Ajax, and the DOM. What frameworks do is smooth over inconsistencies between web browsers and extend the functionality available to developers. Many of them also come with customizable, prefabricated 'widgets' that accomplish such common tasks as picking a date from a calendar, displaying a data chart, or making a tabbed panel. On the server side, Web 2.0 uses many of the same technologies as Web 1.0. New Languages such as PHP, Ruby, ColdFusion, Perl, Python, JSP and ASP are used by developers to dynamically output data using information from files and databases. What has begun to change in Web 2.0 is the way this data is formatted. In the early days of the Internet, there was little need for different websites to communicate with each other and share data. In the new "participatory web", however, sharing data between sites has become an essential capability. To share its data with other sites, a web site must be able to generate output in machine-readable formats such as XML, RSS, and JSON. When a site's data is available in one of these formats, another website can use it to integrate a portion of that site's functionality into itself, linking the two together. When this design pattern is implemented, it ultimately leads to data that is both easier to find and more thoroughly categorized, a hallmark of the philosophy behind the Web 2.0 movement.

[edit]Concepts
Web 2.0 draws together the capabilities of client- and server-side software, content syndication and the use of network protocols. Standards-oriented web browsers may use plug-ins and software extensions to handle the content and the user interactions. Web 2.0 sites provide users

with information storage, creation, and dissemination capabilities that were not possible in the environment now known as "Web 1.0". Web 2.0 websites typically include some of the following features and techniques. Andrew McAfee used the acronym SLATES to refer to them:[24] Search Finding information through keyword search. Links Connects information together into a meaningful information ecosystem using the model of the Web, and provides low-barrier social tools. Authoring The ability to create and update content leads to the collaborative work of many rather than just a few web authors. In wikis, users may extend, undo and redo each other's work. In blogs, posts and the comments of individuals build up over time. Tags Categorization of content by users adding "tags" - short, usually one-word descriptions - to facilitate searching, without dependence on pre-made categories. Collections of tags created by many users within a single system may be referred to as "folksonomies" (i.e., folk taxonomies). Extensions Software that makes the Web an application platform as well as a document server. These include software like Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash player, Microsoft Silverlight, ActiveX, Oracle Java, Quicktime, Windows Media, etc. Signals The use of syndication technology such as RSS to notify users of content changes. While SLATES forms the basic framework of Enterprise 2.0, it does not contradict all of the higher level Web 2.0 design patterns and business models. In this way, a new Web 2.0 report from O'Reilly is quite effective and diligent in interweaving the story of Web 2.0 with the specific aspects of Enterprise 2.0. It includes discussions of selfservice IT, the long tail of enterprise IT demand, and many other consequences of the Web 2.0 era in the enterprise. The report also makes many sensible recommendations around starting small with pilot projects and measuring results, among a fairly long list.[25]

[edit]Usage
Web 2.0 technologies are changing the way messages spread across the Web. A number of online tools and platforms are now defining how people share their perspectives, opinions, thoughts and experiences. Here are some popular web 2.0 tools: Podcasting Blogs RSS Social bookmarking Social networking The popularity of the term Web 2.0, along with the increasing use of blogs, wikis, and social networking technologies, has led many in academia and business to coin a flurry of 2.0s,[26] includingLibrary 2.0,[27] Social Work 2.0,[28] Enterprise 2.0, PR 2.0,
[29] [31]

Classroom 2.0,[30] Publishing 2.0, Medicine 2.0,[32] Telco 2.0, Travel

2.0, Government 2.0,[33] and even Porn 2.0.[34] Many of these 2.0s refer to Web 2.0 technologies as the source of the new version in their respective disciplines and areas. For example, in the Talis white paper "Library 2.0: The Challenge of Disruptive Innovation", Paul Miller argues Blogs, wikis and RSS are often held up as exemplary manifestations of Web 2.0. A reader of a blog or a wiki is provided with tools to add a comment or even, in the case of the wiki, to edit the content. This is what we call the Read/Write web. Talis believes

that Library 2.0 means harnessing this type of participation so that libraries can benefit from increasingly rich collaborative cataloguing efforts, such as including contributions from partner libraries as well as adding rich enhancements, such as book jackets or movie files, to records from publishers and others.[35] Here, Miller links Web 2.0 technologies and the culture of participation that they engender to the field of library science, supporting his claim that there is now a "Library 2.0". Many of the other proponents of new 2.0s mentioned here use similar methods. However, web 2.0 usage is a role dependant as Dennis D. McDonalds claimed. For example, Ordinary people use web 2.0 to establish and maintain relationships through social networks while marketing managers use this promising technology to "end- run unresponsive I.T. department" as Mr. McDonalds mentioned.[36] There is a debate over the use of Web 2.0 technologies in mainstream education. Issues under consideration include the understanding of students' different learning modes; the conflicts between ideas entrenched in informal on-line communities and educational establishments' views on the production and authentication of 'formal' knowledge; and questions about

privacy, plagiarism, shared authorship and the ownership of knowledge and information produced and/or published on line.[37] Marketing For marketers, Web 2.0 offers an opportunity to engage consumers. A growing number of marketers are using Web 2.0 tools to collaborate with consumers on product development, service enhancement and promotion. Companies can use Web 2.0 tools to improve collaboration with both its business partners and consumers. Among other things, company employees have created wikis -- Web sites that allow users to add, delete and edit content -to list answers to frequently asked questions about each product, and consumers have added significant contributions. Another marketing Web 2.0 lure is to make sure consumers can use the online community to network among themselves on topics of their own choosing.[38] Mainstream media usage of web 2.0 is increasing. Saturating media hubs - like New York Times, PC Magazine and Business Week - with links to popular new web sites and services, is critical to achieving the threshold for mass adoption of those services.[39] Web 2.0 offers financial institutions abundant opportunities to engage with customers. Networks such as Twitter, Yelp and Facebook are now becoming common elements of multichannel and customer loyalty strategies, and banks are beginning to use these sites proactively to spread their messages. In a recent article for Bank Technology News, Shane Kite describes how Citigroup's Global Transaction Services unit monitors social media outlets to address customer issues and improve products. Furthermore, the FI uses Twitter to release "breaking news" and upcoming events, and YouTube to disseminate videos that feature executives speaking about market news.[40] Small businesses have become more competitive by using Web 2.0 marketing strategies to compete with larger companies. As new businesses grow and develop, new technology is used decrease the gap between businesses and customers. Social networks have become more intuitive and user friendly to provide information that is easily reached by the end user. For example, Companies use Twitter to offer customers coupons and discounts for products and services.[41]

[edit]Webbased applicatio ns and desktops

Ajax has prompted the development of websites that mimic desktop applications, such as word processing, the spreadsheet, and slide-show presentation. In 2006 Google, Inc. acquired one of the bestknown sites of this broad class, Writely.[42] WYSIWYG wiki and blogging site s replicate many features of PC authoring applications. Several browserbased "operating systems" have emerged, including EyeOS[
43]

and YouOS.[44]

Although coined

as such, many of these services function less like a traditional operating system and more as an application platform. They mimic the user experience of desktop operatingsystems, offering features and applications similar to a PC environment, and are able to run within any modern browser. However, these operating systems do not directly control the hardware on the client's computer. Numerous webbased application services appeared during the dot-com bubble of 1997

2001 and then vanished, having failed to gain a critical mass of customers. In 2005, WebEx ac quired one of the better-known of these, Intranets. com, for $45 million.[45]

[edit]Interne t application s
Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are web 2.0 applications that have many of the characteristics of desktop applications and are typically delivered via a browser.

[edit]Distri bution of Media

[edit]XML and RSS
Many regard syndication of

site content as a Web 2.0 feature. Syndication uses standardized protocols to permit end-users to make use of a site's data in another context (such as another website, a browser plugin, or a separate desktop application). Protocols which permit syndication include RSS (rea lly simple syndication, also known as web syndication), RD F (as in RSS 1.1), and Atom, all of them XMLbased formats. Observers have started to refer to these technologies as web feeds. Specialized protocols such as FOAF and XF

N (both for social networking) extend the functionality of sites or permit end-users to interact without centralized websites.

[edit]Web APIs
Web 2.0 often uses machinebased interactions such as REST and S OAP. Servers often expose proprietary APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), but standard APIs (for example, for posting to a blog or notifying a blog update) have also come into use. Most communications through APIs involve XML or JSON payloa ds.

REST APIs, through their use of selfdescriptive messages and hypermedia as the engine of application state, should be self describing once an entry URI is known. Web Services Description Language (WSD L) is the standard way of publishing a SOAP API and there are a range of web service specifications. E MML, or Enterprise Mashup Markup Language by the Open Mashup Alliance, is an XML markup language for creating enterprise mashups.

[edit]Critici sm
Critics of the term claim that "Web 2.0" does not represent a new version of the World Wide Web at all, but merely continues to use so-called "Web 1.0" technologies and concepts. First, techniques such as AJAX do not replace underlying protocols like HTTP, but add an additional layer of abstraction on top of them. Second, many of the ideas of Web 2.0 had already been featured in implementations on networked systems well before the term "Web 2.0" emerged. Amaz on.com, for

instance, has allowed users to write reviews and consumer guides since its launch in 1995, in a form of selfpublishing. Amazon also opened its API to outside developers in 2002.[46] Previou s developments also came from research in computersupported collaborative learning and co mputersupported cooperative work and from established products like Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino, all phenomena which precede Web 2.0. But perhaps the most common criticism is that

the term is unclear or simply a buzzword. For example, in a podcast interview,[4] Tim Berners-Lee des cribed the term "Web 2.0" as a "piece of jargon": "Nobody really knows what it means...If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along."[4] Other critics labeled Web 2.0 "a second bubble" (referring to the Dot-com bubble of circa 19952001), suggesting that too many Web 2.0 companies attempt to develop the

same product with a lack of business models. For example, The Economist has dubbed the midto late-2000s focus on Web companies "Bubble 2.0".
[47]

Venture

capitalist Josh Kopelman noted that Web 2.0 had excited only 53,651 people (the number of subscribers at that time to TechCrunch, a Weblog covering Web 2.0 startups and technology news), too few users to make them an economically viable target for consumer applications.[48] A lthough Bruce Sterling reports he's a fan of Web 2.0, he

thinks it is now dead as a rallying concept.

[clarification needed][49]

Critics have cited the language used to describe the hype cycle of Web 2.0[50] as an example of Technoutopianist rhetori c.[51] In terms of Web 2.0's social impact, critics such as Andrew Keen argue that Web 2.0 has created a cult of digital narcissis m and amateurism, which undermines the notion of expertise by allowing anybody, anywhere to share and place undue value upon their own opinions about

any subject and post any kind of content, regardless of their particular talents, knowledge, credentials, biases or possible hidden agendas. Keen's 2007 book, Cult of the Amateur, argues that the core assumption of Web 2.0, that all opinions and user-generated content are equally valuable and relevant, is misguided. Additionally, Sunday Times reviewer John Flintoff has characterized Web 2.0 as "creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home

videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels", and also asserted that Wikipedia is full of "mistakes, half truths and misunderstandin gs".[52]

[edit]Trade mark
In November 2004, CMP Media applied to the USPTO for a service mark on the use of the term "WEB 2.0" for live events.
[53]

On the basis

of this application, CMP Media sent a cease-anddesistdemand to the Irish nonprofit organization IT @Cork on May 24, 2006,[54] but

retracted it two days later.

[55]

The "WEB

2.0" service mark registration passed final PTO Examining Attorney review on May 10, 2006, and was registered on June 27, 2006.
[53]

The Europea

n Union applicatio n (application number 004972212, which would confer unambiguous status in Ireland) was refused on May 23, 2007.

[edit]Web 3.0
See also: Semantic Web Definitions of Web 3.0 vary greatly. Amit Agrawal states that Web 3.0 is,

among other things, about the Semantic Web and person alization.[56] Focu sing on the computer elements, Conra d Wolframhas argued that Web 3.0 is where "the computer is generating new information", rather than humans.[57] Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, considers the Semantic Web an "unrealisable abstraction" and sees Web 3.0 as the return of experts and authorities to the Web. For example, he points to Bertelsman's deal with the German Wikipedia to

produce an edited print version of that encyclopedia. C NN Money's Jessi Hempel expects Web 3.0 to emerge from new and innovative Web 2.0 services with a profitable business model.
[58]

Others still

such as Manoj Sharma, an organization strategist, in the keynote "A Brave New World Of Web 3.0" proposes that Web 3.0 will be a "Totally Integrated World" - cradleto-grave experience of being always plugged onto the net.[59] Futurist John Smart, lead author of the Metaverse

Roadmap[60] ech oes Sharma's perspective, defining Web 3.0 as the firstgeneration Meta verse (converge nce of the virtual and physical world), a web development layer that includes TVquality open video, 3D simulations, augmented reality, humanconstructed semantic standards, and pervasive broadband, wireless, and sensors. Web 3.0's early geosocial (Foursquare, etc.) and augmented reality (Layar, etc.) webs are an extension of Web 2.0's participatory technologies and

social networks (Facebook, etc.) into 3D space. Of all its metaverse-like developments, Smart suggests Web 3.0's most defining characteristic will be the mass diffusion of NTSC-or-better quality open video to TVs, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices, a time when "the internet swallows the television."[61] Sm art considers Web 4.0 to be the Semantic Web and in particular, the rise of statistical, machineconstructed semantic tags and algorithms, driven by broad collective use of conversational interfaces,

perhaps circa 2020.[62] David Siegel's perspective in Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web, 2009, is consonant with this, proposing that the growth of humanconstructed semantic standards and data will be a slow, industryspecific incremental process for years to come, perhaps unlikely to tip into broad social utility until after 2020.

[edit]See also