Web 2.0: YouTube.com

Tim O'Reilly made an attempt to define Web2.0 almost a year ago. He overly complicates the fundamentals by showcasing several examples of how Web1.0 has evolved into Web2.0. In my personal opinion, Web2.0 is simply defined as "connecting people". Almost every example that I can think of somehow revolves around people communicating together (CampFire), sharing together (JotSpot), collaborating together (SalesForce), working together to compile results (Digg), social networking (MySpace) and/or professional networking (LinkedIn). The website highlighted in this blog post is also centered around "people" and their tagline is "YouTube: Broadcast Yourself".

YouTube.com has risen to enormous popularity in the last year or so. The website is nothing more than a compilation of amateur videos that users upload, share, and TAG (categorize). Visitors to the website have the opportunity to post comments on videos, rate them, or add them to their favorites. The website contains thousands of videos ranging from confessions to silly songs to professional performances. A great video has the potential to grant you Internet fame and land you on NBC's Today Show.

I believe the website has gained popularity because humans find other people interesting. It may be that they enjoy watching people do things that are socially unacceptable, things that they would not do themselves, or just that it expands on the "reality" that we've gotten used to watching on TV. Whatever the reason, it confirms my belief that Web2.0 is all about bringing people together in a new and exciting online environment.

Filed in: web2.0, youtube, 37signals, jotspot, myspace, linkedin