I’ve previously tried to explain why Web 2.0 is the big thing. But at they say, a picture is equal to a million words. I guess in that case a video is equal to a google words

This video gives a short and sweet summary of where the web has come from and how it evolved to today. Very cool!

I came across it because someone submitted it to TubeBattle.

TubeBattle’s opening was a success beyond my wildest hopes!

In its first week, it clock 1,768 unique hits with 5,436 pageviews. Users span the globe, from the Americas (North and South) to Europe to the Middle East to Asia and Australia. I think pretty much everywhere there is Internet

The busiest day occurred on the 6th day of the first week. It clocked 907 hits primarily coming from StumbleUpon.com. StumbleUpon is a system where users recommend web sites for others to check out. This is a great sign of TubeBattle’s ability to attract organic (natural) and viral (word-of-mouth) traffic.

And perhaps the statistics that I’m most proud of. As mentioned above, we had 1,768 unique visitors. Here’s the cool bit… of those, 139 were return visitors. I’m overjoyed that in the span of 7 days, we’ve had 8% of all visitors returning (within days of their first visit!).

I’ve re-engaged the developer who helped me write TubeBattle.
We’re starting work immediately on v1.1 - nothing revolutionary, some bug fixes, some major and minor tweaks to make a better experience.
But planning has already begun for v2.0, which will bring a whole new angle to TubeBattle. THAT will blow people away!

ps: For those who are tracking, I changed TubeBattle’s logo. I’m moving away from blatant Web 2.0 logo styles. I’ll make another post of what my new style is another time (but you’ll be able to see it on TubeBattle right now).

No matter how much reflection you put on a logo, a website just isn’t Web 2.0 until it has a cool “loading” icon. Thankfully, ajaxload.info allows anyone to generate their very own custom-colored icon!

Even me

OK, maybe I’m cheap…
I must be one of the miority in the known-universe that doesn’t have Adobe Photoshop (using Corel Paint Shop Pro instead).

Anyway, I’ve been really getting into looking at all those cool Web 2.0 stuff, but all I could find are Photoshop tutorials on how to make those logos.

So I figured I’d have a shot at doing it in Paint Shop Pro (PSP), and I came up with this:

I’ll also made avaialble the source files for those that want to play around and see what they come up with!
PaintShop Pro format
Photoshop format

It was only recently that I really start paying attention to Web 2.0. While I was at eBay (LOL, yeah the irony of it all), I always thought Web 2.0 was a marketing gimmick. For those that have an interest and time, there are like a bizillion articles written about what Web 2.0 is. Here are some things that stick in my mind:

• What is Web 2.0

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
DoubleClick	–>	Google AdSense
Ofoto	–>	Flickr
Akamai	–>	BitTorrent
mp3.com	–>	Napster
Britannica Online	–>	Wikipedia
personal websites	–>	blogging
evite	–>	upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation	–>	search engine optimization
page views	–>	cost per click
screen scraping	–>	web services
publishing	–>	participation
content management systems	–>	wikis
directories (taxonomy)	–>	tagging (”folksonomy”)
stickiness	–>	syndication

• From Wikipedia: Folksonomy is an Internet-based information retrieval methodology consisting of collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that categorize content.
• Tags. It will surpass text searches as the preferred way to look up information, and will be the only practical way to search the videos, etc.
• Social bookmarking. Collaboratively mapping out the internet. This will ultimately make today’s search engines obsolete, which is why you’ll see Yahoo and Google pushing for “social network searches”.
• Learn to Web 2.0-ify your graphics:
• Learn to make some Web 2.0 buttons.
• Slideshow of Web 2.0 logos (how fitting that the slideshow is on Flickr, one of the premier examples of Web 2.0).
• Analysis of Web 2.0 logos.
• Color palette of Web 2.0 logos.
• Make entire logos with Web 2.0 style

Oh, and the “next big thing” will be probably be first discovered on Digg!