Otherwise known as the read/write web, Web 2.0 is the interactive web that allows authors and audiences to co-construct material on the Internet. Key characteristics of Web 2.0 include:

1. the web as platform, both data and software are no longer redistricted to the single machine;
2. harnessing collective intelligence, the need to trust users are co-developers; and
3. the end of perpetual software release cycle, in other words perpetual beta.

Most Web 2.0 technologies are services, not packaged software, that start out as free and develop into cost-effective scalable solutions.