Introduction


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Web 2.0 Technology Web 2.0 Portals
Offshore.NET Development helps clients in implementing Web 2.0 techniques and concepts in their solutions. Web 2.0 is a concept, an approach to developing and delivering web solutions, which take advantage of and harness the power of the Internet, to offer a platform for communication and collaboration among individuals and applications.
Advantages:
The benefits that Web 2.0 has to offer include the following:

. Web 2.0 enables information from a wide range of sources to be easily collated and personalized as per the    preferences of individual users.

. Provides an easy and cost effective means of communication among people.

. The availability of software applications online has provided businesses with a cost effective alternative to    getting applications developed.

. Businesses can tap into and advertise and promote their products/brand to the huge user networks.

. Up-selling/Cross Selling: In order to promote products, up-selling and cross selling features can    be built    into the solutions.

 Web 2.0 Technologies
There are several technologies and concepts that can be used to develop a Web 2.0 portal. These help in creating and fostering online communities of users. Some of the concepts and technologies used by Offshore.NET Development to develop Web 2.0 portals include:

RSS: RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a mechanism by which content can be easily distributed and shared between websites and users. Individuals can subscribe to content from disparate sources and receive the latest updated content without the need to visit each individual source. RSS can be used to share and display information pertaining to: News/article headlines, alerts, notifications, blogs, reviews, podcasts, listings and advertising and marketing information among others.It enables individuals to customize and control the organization of information displayed to them. RSS feeds can be used as an effective marketing tool with its ability to reach out and target specific user groups.

Social Bookmarking: A social bookmarking website is one that allows users to define their individual keywords that can then be used to categorize and store their collection of bookmarks to various websites/Internet resources. The bookmarks can be viewed and accessed by other visitors to the website. The main advantage of social bookmarking is that it is online and therefore can be accessed from any location.

Social bookmarks provide an easy means to locate, classify, and share resources over the Internet. Social bookmarking helps in increasing exposure and driving traffic to websites.

Blogs: Through blogs individuals can keep a chronological journal of their views and opinions on various topics. A blog can include a combination of text, images and links to other related websites. Visitors to the blog can post their comments on the entries and carry out a discussion on the same. Blogs are being used by an increasingly large number of individuals to share information and interact with like minded individuals spread.

Social Networking Sites: A social networking website provides a platform for individuals to interact and communicate with each other. A social networking site can either be based on a specific topic of interest or can be general networking site. Individuals can register with the site, create their profiles and interact with other users registered with the website. The social networking sites provide easy to use tools that facilitate communication between users. Social networking also provides businesses with an easy and cost effective mechanism of reaching out to and advertising their products and services to a larger customer base.

AJAX, Flash, Flex etc: Technologies such as AJAX, Flash, and Flex etc can be used to provide a better and more engaging browsing experience to users.

APIs: APIs define how an application can communicate with other applications thereby enabling disparate web applications to easily interact and be integrated. APIs from various sources can be combined to create a completely new service. Developers can make use of the freely available APIs such as Google Maps, eBay etc to build and provide the associated functionalities in a customized manner in their websites.

Wikis: Wikis are collaborative websites that provide users with a mechanism to publish and edit the content online. A wiki page is characterized by a large number of hyperlinks to other related pages. Wikis provide a simple markup language that can be used to format the layout and display of the content.

Podcasts: A podcast is a series of audio commentaries on a wide range of topics that are available online. Individuals can subscribe to the podcast (via RSS Feeds) and listen to it through their browsers or can download and hear it over various audio devices.

A Web 2.0 portal may include one or more of the technologies/concepts mentioned above.