From the Desk of the Executive Editor: Social Networking Tools

Web 1.0 refers to the technology that began with Netscape in 1995, also called the World Wide Web (WWW or web). Users would link to the web for a variety of services that included research, shopping and entertainment - a collection of resources analogous to a college campus with its own shopping mall. It offered text and images, music and voice, animation and video, but it was all one way – from the user to the source. Web 2.0, the second generation, is a two way technology; the label is credited to Tim O’Reilly. The descriptors associated with it most often are online collaboration, information sharing, and social networking. Users can change that which they see and hear and, in that way, contribute to the internet. The most optimistic visions have people from all over the world building new and better kinds of knowledge together.