I've been seeing more and more articles and blurbs about Web 2.0 in recent weeks. Web 2.0 is here and spreading like wildfire. What is Web 2.0 you might ask and how do I access it?

Web 1.0 was the internet as we knew it from the mid 1990's until now. Actually the first iteration of the internet started in the 1960's and was used by the military and universities to share information. The internet was hard to use because you had to use very crude, command line tools to upload and download information. When Marc Andreesen created the first internet browser in the mid 90's the internet as we know it today exploded. Information was easily accessible by everyone because of the Netscape browser.

Web 1.0 evolved into a universe of websites that contained information. We browsed the internet and found the information we were looking for. We had to search for and find the information we were looking for hence the mega success of Yahoo and Google's search engines. For the most part Web 1.0 was a one way communication with us doing most of the work.

Web 2.0 is the next generation of the internet and it's based on interactivity and community. You've probably heard the term social networking which is the foundation of Web 2.0. Web users today want to communicate and participate in the content that appears on their favorite websites. This includes chat rooms and content sharing websites like myspace.com, youtube.com, and flickr.com.

The same phenomenon is happening in today's popular television shows. The viewers want to be involved in the program they're watching hence the success of shows like American Idol and other shows where viewers get to participate by voting at the end of each show. Each week millions of people vote via text messaging and through the shows website. At 99 cents per text message it's a tidy profit for American Idol considering hundreds of millions of votes are cast each season. For the shows that let you vote for free on their websites, millions of hits are generated on these websites each week. Not bad if you're an advertiser on one of these websites. Interactive television is alive and well thanks to Web 2.0.

If you're still not sure what Web 20 is, here's a list of some of the most popular new generation, interactive websites. Enjoy and let me know what your favorite Web 2.0 websites are.

del.icio.us – lets you vote on your favorite websites

www.youtube.com – post your own videos and you can rate each video

www.stumbleupon – lets you recommend your favorite websites to your friends as you stumble around the internet

www.imeem.com – lets you join online communities called meems where you can connect with others

www.meebo.com – lets you do your instant messaging from a website instead of through the program installed on your computer.

www.popurls.com – aggregates data from the web's most popular social networking sites

www.slide.com – a toolbar that lets you create continuous slide shows from wherever you want including your friends postings on youtube.com and flickr.com

www.pandora.com – lets you create your own personal internet radio station

www.eyespot.com – lets you upload your personal videos

www.twitter.com – text messaging service that lets you send text messages to groups

www.songbird.com – aggregates music from different sources on the internet

www.revvor.com – online video site

www.fark.com – lets you submit your favorite links to crazy news stories

Send me your favorite Web 2.0 websites and I'll post them on my website at http://valiss.com/content/view/149/69/ so we can build our list of favorites.