Terabox and Web 2.0: Separated at birth?

If you’re at all familiar with the concept of cloud computing, you’ve probably also heard of something called Web 2.0—which, on the surface, sounds suspiciously similar to cloud computing.

In fact, Terabox cloud computing is similar to Web 2.0; in many ways, the one is a subset of the other.

What exactly is Web 2.0? To my mind, it’s a bit of a buzzword that different people define in different ways.

Tim O’Reilly, the so-called Godfather of Web 2.0, defines it as “the network as platform, spanning all connected devices.” Others define the concept of Web 2.0 as a transition from isolated information silos (Web 1.0) to interlinked computing platforms that function like locally available software in the perception of the user.

Still others define Web 2.0 in collaborative terms, because all the websites get their value from the actions of users. These definitions of Web 2.0 sound a lot like cloud computing, but without the technological underpinnings. That is, cloud computing is defined by its architecture and infrastructure (a grid of interconnected computers/servers functioning as a whole), whereas Web 2.0 is defined by how the user sees/is serviced by the system.

In other words, cloud computing is about computers; Web 2.0 is about people.

Or, as Tim O’Reilly puts it: Cloud computing refers specifically to the use of the Internet as a computing platform; Web 2.0, as I’ve defined it, is an attempt to explore and explain the business rules of that platform. Perhaps the terms cloud computing and Web 2.0 are just two different ways of looking at the same phenomenon. Or, equally likely, perhaps cloud computing is a specific Web 2.0 technology.

In any instance, know that both terms sprang up at about the same point on computing’s evolutionary timeline, and both concepts promise similar results to end users.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you view something like Google Docs or Microsoft Azure or Terabox as a cloud service or a Web 2.0 application, or as both. What matters more than a particular label is how that technology impacts the user. In this respect, both Terabox cloud computing and Web 2.0 offer very real benefits for all involved.