Web 2.0 Technologies

"Web 2.0" is a buzzword that describes how today's Web user interacts with the Internet. Instead of just passively reading text, users now upload and download content, information, opinions, and ideas.

I can provide custom Web 2.0 solutions that allow your users to interact with your web site. Better still: because these solutions employ open-source software packages, they can be implemented with little cost to you.

Here are some of the solutions I can provide:

• Wikis are user-friendly, scalable and customizable ways to organize and present information. The most common example of a wiki is Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia with over two million entries.

  Two of the most commonly used open-source wiki packages are:

  • MediaWiki, which is the software used by Wikipedia. MediaWiki is best suited to larger-scale applications; it requires PHP and MySQL (both of which are also available as open-source software).

    MediaWiki is fully customizable using templates. For an example of how you can use MediaWiki, see my Blue Jays wiki.

  • DokuWiki, which is a smaller-scale open-source wiki that requires PHP but no database. DokuWiki is also fully customizable using templates; for an example, see this sample DokuWiki document.

  Both of these wikis can be configured to allow or deny user editing privileges, and both can be easily adapted to meet your documentation needs.

• A bulletin board provides a convenient way for solution providers and their users to interact with one another. The phpBB open-source package is a fully customizable bulletin board that offers public, group and private forums. It requires PHP and MySQL.

  For an example of phpBB, see my sample bulletin board. This board uses a customized template to specify a colour scheme; this scheme can be easily modified to match the colours your organization uses on your web site. It's also easy to include your company logo.

• A blog (short for "weblog") is a handy way to disseminate information to your users and customers. WordPress offers a handy open-source blog package that uses PHP and MySQL to display and store text. The WordPress package can be customized using templates, and dozens of plug-ins exist to add functionality to your blog.

With wikis, bulletin boards, and blogs, your website becomes more than just a passive repository of information - it becomes an interactive resource for your users and customers.