Anyone taking a casual or business interest in the Internet has heard the term web 2.0; as in "Web 2.0 is going to change everything and the online experience will never be the same!" or more commonly "Web 2.0, what the.?".
The phrase has all of the classic symptoms of buzzword-iness. It is difficult to trace the origin of the term; it lacks a specific meaning and is widely redefined to meet the needs of the moment. This should not however, imply that there are not valuable things to understand about web 2.0 and its implications for antique dealers and other businesses making use the Internet for sales and promotion purposes.
This article will attempt to clear up some confusion about the meaning of the phrase and discuss some of the methods that can help an antique store take advantage of the opportunities it brings to the table. Some of this might get a little technical but stick with me and hopefully some practical examination might demystify the notion of web 2.0.
First of all I have spoken with a number of people who have gotten the idea that there is some kind of looming wholesale change in the technology of the internet that will make all existing hardware and software outdated and change the web fundamentally. This simply isn't true. Web 2.0, for most people, means the recent changes in the way the web is used by visitors and in the way web designers approach the content and interactivity of their sites.
Mighty Ajax
The name is derived from the phrase Asynchronous Javascript and XML. The development of Ajax, a technology that allows a site to exchange small amounts of data with the server in manner invisible to the user, is a step forward for developers but it is not present in all examples of web 2.0 nor does it represent a fundamental change in either hardware or software. Ajax is related to existing Javascript language and simply makes it so the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the visitor requests a change. This increases the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.
It's All About Content and Choice
Web 2.0 is about growing a large market of return visitors who then provide content to others using the site. For the purposes at hand content should be thought of everything on a web site that might attract the attention of both human visitors and the extremely important "web crawlers" used by search engines to find and rank sites. Content consists of any text, images, video, and links; essentially anything that would be of interest to a visitor. As a general rule: the more of it a site has the better.
In the early days of the Internet websites simply showed a collection of text and, before long, images that the visitor could take or leave. Over time sites have learned to provide more choices to their visitors while at the same time persuading them to provide content for the site, which in the long run attracts more visitors.
People like to give their opinions, leave comments, and use a site as a base to interact with others with similar interests. It is important to remember that the comments they leave and the questions they ask are part of an ever-growing collection of content for a site. It's free and it is always rolling in.
An active forum or blog receive a good deal of comments not only informs visitors it also attracts the attention of Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. Lots of fresh content will make them rank a site higher and return it as a search result more often.
Even if a site's goal is to attract buyers not simply visitors it is important to think in terms of the sites appeal to the search engines. Good content and interactivity will help assure that potential customers doing searches on Yahoo will even find a site selling something they are looking for.
The edition of web site features that allow people greater choice in what they experience on a site is at the root of understanding web 2.0. Through some combination of traditional text, image galleries, user generated reviews and comments, animation, and video a website can provide their visitors with a more engaging experience and improve a site's traffic numbers.
Antiques and 2.0?
Consider this, an antique dealer specializing in furniture uses a web site to promote her business. If she applies web 2.0 thinking to her site there are several things might serve to promote the growth of traffic to her web site.
Image Galleries- An extensive image gallery of the beautiful furniture will attract both visitors looking for images and the search engines that catalog them. Galleries can also be posted on image sharing social networking sites such as Flickr. Posting her images with links back to her store would promote her site and build community with perspective customers.
Blogs and Video- If our storeowner started a blog in which she posted identification tips, restoration hints, and simply shared her experiences while inviting others to do the same she could grow traffic to her store and improve her rankings with the search engines. She posts a few videos telling how to go about some aspect of renovation and invites others to do the same. She could link to and comment on other antiquing resources available on the net.
Certainly she will have to invest some time writing posts and putting up new images and video. Our shop owner will also have to learn how to operate her gallery programs and blog posting tools. However learning the technology is not as difficult as it might sound and content generation is absolutely vital to any web sites promotion; 2.0 or not.
Silas Finch is a freelance writer and regular contributor to New England Antiquing.
He can be reached at silas@collectibleantiquesetc.com