WEB 2.0 AND RECRUITING

Web 2.0 is a hot topic. The term “Web 2.0” refers to the next generation of Internet applications that allow (even encourage) the average Internet user to collaborate and share information online. The first phase of the Web—Web 1.0—concluding in 2000 was characterized by bringing useful content online through the application of Web technologies to information (such as weather forecasts) in order to make them available on the Web to millions of potential users worldwide. A consequence was that a vast amount of useful content was now available—addressable via URLs and accessible over HTTP—with the requisite content being delivered via HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

In Web 2.0 sites the content is user generated. It is the users who both create the information and control what they show to the outside world. A defining characteristic of Web 2.0 sites is their ability to facilitate collaboration. Web 2.0 is a collection of technologies that create a participatory, common space where multimedia can be shared, discussed, and manipulated with little or no digital programming sophistication. Generically named social networking, Web 2.0 sites vary from personal data (FaceBook & MySpace), photos (Flickr), music (podcasts), videos (YouTube), diaries or opinions (blogs), or encyclopedic definitions (wikis like Wikipedia).

If Web 1.0 (even though we did not know it was “1.0” at the time) was a read-only medium, today’s Web 2.0 is read/write. In all these sites users can create their own pages, upload pictures, documents, music, etc. and collaborate other users. Users become part of the site development instead of just readers who consume someone else’s work.

In the blogs to come, I will expand further on web 2.0 and will address how Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are being used as a recruiting tool.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098