Web 2.0

People working for and with the web find themselves in a very interesting situation right now.
A new period of the web, named Web 2.0, brings a fresh interest, fresh people and fresh money
to the medium. After the dot.com crash a new wave seems to be happening. It is based on a big
increase of the number of people online who are not only customers but authors and publishers,
using the web to connect them and facilitate their work. New online services and technologies
(Blogs, Content Syndication, Social Networks, Tagging Databases, Podcasting) became the core 
of today's internet.

Technically, Web 2.0 refers to portable, standardized and device independent data and 
simplicistic, dynamic interfaces; both for users and developers.

So much for the marketing. Another side of the discourse is ideological. Critics are 
concerned by a dull future of total standardization or on another side welcome Web 2.0 as how 
the web should have been from the very beginning. There is also the opinion that Web 2.0 is 
nothing but a hype, Boom 2.0 or even Bubble 2.0.

But one thing (which was actually already clear for ten years) is now indisputable: The web
needs its own design approach and competent designers thinking on the level of distributed 
services and semantic structures. The web page is not a unit and web design isn't about 
designing pages anymore. There is a green light for a new type and scale of projects.

This semester we will examine companies and communities forming around technologies like 
Blogging, Structured Blogging, AJAX, Tagging, Filesharing, Podacsting etc and the impact 
they are having inside and outside of the web. We will reflect on the aesthetics of content 
and presentation that is required to employ the new sharing and distribution mechanisms as 
well as how commercial entities, developers, artists, journalists or activists use them. 
How this new environment changes the notion of what the Internet is for its users and what 
influence can we excert there?

Projects should take advantage of the current situation.

Participants of the project are asked to prepare and collect materials in advance and to 
monitor IT and design news on the topic.