Hello

I am a person who decided 3 years ago that I wanted to create or build my own websites.

The company I use to assist me not only has ALL the tools and All the advice and ALL the assistance and can prove ALL that it says and is SO cheap to purchase, just today it surprised me AGAIN.

It appears that they had a little setback with one of the tools they provide. This tool is a major tool for all of us who are building websites.

Did they deny the problem? No.
Did they try to pass the blame onto someone else? No.
Did they try to hide from a lot of angry customers? Again, no.

Here is what they did.
They sent an email out to everyone, yes that's right everyone telling us that there was a problem AND APOLOGIZING PROFUSELY!

In addition they compensated us for the inconvenience by adding credits to the tool that was affected.

They kept in contact with us all through a forum which was very easy to locate and use.

They received many, many words of encouragement from a lot of website builders basically saying - thanks for the extra credits and no problem with the glitch.

Then the company advised after many testings that the problems were all fixed and we were good to go.

NOW IS THIS THE TYPE OF SERVICE YOUR COMPANY PROVIDES?

I'm reasonably confident that a lot of people are paying a lot of money for a product which does NOT do all that this particular company does. Question is why do so many people stay with that type of website building company?

In layman language Web 2.0 means the second generation of web development. The first generation web development is considered to be the great dot-com bubble of late 90's and the rupture of which around late 2001 triggered ubiquitous reactions that the Web was over hyped. Concept of second generation of Web development started after a media conference between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. In this brainstorming session it was realized that the web has thrown up more interesting applications and Web technology has emerged more important that ever and the word Web 2.0 was coined. Web 2.0 is a business revolution making a bent towards the web as a platform. Web 2.0 doesn't have a definite boundary and there are several things encompassing a core. Web 2.0 is visualized as principles and collection of numerous sites running on those principles at some distance from the core.

Since then Web 2.0 has remained a top level discussion for proper definition and boundary that is yet to be reached. One can simply say blogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds, and lightweight business over a single platform. Web is no more one way, now uploading, and downloading of information happens simultaneously, sharing and distributing contents across networks leveraging the power of "Long Tail".

Web 2.o includes numerous practices. Here are some typically implemented practices by websites:

• Well-off internet applications based on Flex or Ajax.
• This intend to allow information intended for end-users, such as contact information, calendar events, geographic coordinates, content life, social relationships etc
• Presentation is separated from content through Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
• High-end APIs (Application programming interfaces).
• Content Syndication through RSS or Atom.
• Facility for content creation through users, also by machines from client side or server side.

Content Syndication: Syndicating partial or whole content through standard protocols such as RSS, Atom, and RDF by using XML so as to be used by the end-users for their need.

Some misconceptions on Web 2.0:

• Curvy designs (This curvy structures became widely popular at the same time, designers also started making more websites with this cool looking styles)
• Use of Ajax or Flex (Which happens to come in the same time of Web 2.0, No doubt that websites with web 2.0 architecture needs these to work well.)

Web 2.0 is not an alien to criticism and had its fair share. Here are some criticisms leveled at Web 2.0

• Web 2.0 is not a new version of World Wide Web at all. It merely uses the technologies and architectures of Web 1.0.
• Ajax is not substituting the HTML protocol; it's an additional layer over HTML.
• Blogs or social networking was features of Amazon.com since 1995 when the word called Web 2.0 dint exist. It's way more than only blogs and social networking.

AJAX is a cross-platform technique that can be use on different operating system and web application based on JavaScript and DOM. It is a powerful approach of web application technique using client-side scripting to exchange data with the web server. This means that with AJAX, web pages increases interactivity and faster responsiveness of user interface by having an independent communication with the server. Gone are the traditional ways of web browsing whereby a new page communicates with each user's request. This creates dynamic web application user interface that renders effective usability of every desktop applications. AJAX primary purpose is to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, functionality, and usability.

Ajax, by definition, is not technology. In fact, it is an application of several technologies. Ajax incorporates several existing web application like XHTML and CSS for standard-based presentation; the Document Object Model for dynamic display and interaction; XML and XSLT for data interchange between the server and the client; the XMLHttpRequest to exchange asynchronous data with the web server; and the use of JavaScript as the core code for running AJAX application.

To understand AJAX, first we must know how the traditional web application works. The classic web interface trigger an HTTP request back to web server. The server then process and retrieve data before returning an HTML page to the users. This process as a model for hypertext medium makes technical sense. But as web application evolves this process does not make the user interface more interactive and practical.

AJAX, on the other hand, eliminates this problem. AJAX speed up the loading of any web application with the use of intermediary between the user and the server called AJAX engine. This adding of another layer application of eliminates the start-stop-start-stop nature on the web. The browser loads an AJAX engine at the start of session.

The AJAX engine allows the user interface and the application to interchange data asynchronously-independent of the communication to the server. So the interaction between the user and the web never slows down, no point of waiting for the server to do something.

AJAX is a powerful technique that grows exceedingly as web application. That is, AJAX is now part of the guiding principle as web 2.0 flourishes and become a practical reality. With the power of AJAX, many of the business and marketing web site are integrated with AJAX application server platform now. Most of the major products of Google such as Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Suggest are employing AJAX application. Other web services like the photo-sharing application Flickr, Amazon's A9.com, and the new Yahoo! maps depends on AJAX. The application of AJAX comes from simple function to the most complex program like Google Maps.