Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing

Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing are two technologies that have been quickly developing in the world of computers for the past several years. While both technologies are very important and innovative in their own rights, they are a very useful combination together to benefit the computing experience and cost for both businesses and private end users. Web 2.0 is very useful to the general public as it allows for more of an Internet presence for individuals. Users can upload and share photos with Flickr, keep blogs with Tumblr, Wordpress and Blogger, share short messages with large groups of people using Twitter and share personal information with Facebook. (1)

Along with a growing individual experience on the Internet comes new marketing opportunities for companies. Products like Google’s AdSense and Facebook’s decommissioned Beacon use information the Internet presence maintained by the end user to deliver targeted advertising, or advertising tailored to the user’s interest. (2) This targeted advertising makes the advertising more effective as it is more likely that the viewer will be enticed by the ad.

The role that cloud computing plays in Web 2.0 is that it makes it more cost effective for companies to try to gather personal information and create targeted advertising. Cloud computing means that processing and storage can be distributed over the internet, so that companies are not responsible for all of their servers in-house. (3) This allows companies to have flexible storage and bandwidth for cheap. Because of this, companies like Flickr and Facebook can offer users free space to store their information over the internet. While someone still has to pay for this computing, it becomes much cheaper, and allows for most of the company’s revenue to come from advertising interests.

While there is some concern about the use of personal information in the Web 2.0 age, it is clear that both individual users and corporations can benefit from the use of Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing technologies. Individuals benefit from the plethora of free services available to them and corporations benefit from increased sales from directed advertising as well as the reduced cost offered by the use of Cloud Computing.

1. http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20

2. http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/3341

3. http://netseminar.stanford.edu/seminars/Cloud.pdf