What genre/application of Web 2.0 is most appealing or potentially useful to you and why?

It is not a particular genre or web application within the Web 2.0 movement that I find particularly interesting. What I find most interesting, probably due to its importance, is the user-designed/user-adapted technologies that have given rise to wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and perpetual beta versions of applications that inhabit the Web sphere. Web 2.0 has been described as, “an idea in people’s heads rather than in reality.” However, there are some very tangible collaborative practices at work in the Web 2.0 movement. Two practices that interest me greatly are the implementation and the maintenance of the strictly web-based perpetual beta software and the incorporation of Ajax technologies, which enables user-innovation.

First, what is currently the widest spread perpetual beta application, Google Maps, is interesting when one considers the systemic nature at play in the design, production and dissemination of software. Most software companies, such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems, release applications over time. The end user is not only required to pay for the application, but also any upgrades or services associated with it. There is a distinct line of ownership that is partially ensured with designed obsolescence. In contrast, the perpetual beta application exists in perpetuity. Many are often considered to be service orientated, where the primogenitors of the applications have adopted the business mindset that their beta versions are a platform, as opposed to a brick-and-mortar storefront, from where they can enact the Long Tail business model. If companies like Google did not provide a continually improving, ubiquitous and free platform to users, then manufacturers would be in want of a place to advertise their wares on a global scale. Traditional media outlets have high cost barriers or are limited temporally. Simply put, there are not enough hours in each day to meet the needs of every business wanting to advertise. In contrast, Google and similar companies, utilizes free-to-user platforms that are very effective at delivering consumers to advertisers. The adoption of the Long Tail enables web-based companies to offer relatively low-cost, low-demand products, to a very large number of consumers.
Second, The Ajax collection of technologies, first coined by Google developers, is important for many reasons. Ajax is not single-technology dependent. Designers can utilize a variety of existing web development tools and coding languages to manipulate web-based applications without removing information from web servers. This work scheme has come to be known as asynchronous loading. It allows the designer to implement a web application, etc. that communicates with a server without disturbing the experience of the end-user. Equally fascinating, is that the remote scripting capabilities incorporated by Ajax, are not reliant on one coding language, but many, such as JavaScript, ColdfFusion, XHTML, VB Script and more. Imagine someone editing a movie while you watched it, but you never knew, yet somehow your viewer experience kept improving over time. Asynchronous loading, allows designers and users to modify an application’s, “content (adding, changing or deleting- information or associating metadata with the existing information) simultaneously,” while it is being utilized and manipulated.
The idea behind both examples is that the Web 2.0 movement has taken recognition of a continuing evolution, taking place in the design and implementation of web-based technologies. The result is an improved compatibility, reliability, and overall end-user experience.