Web 2.0 wave starts  

Whether you use your computer for work or fun, the programs you use generally have one thing in common - they are stored on your PC. Increasingly though, that software is moving online. The move to put more and more of those familiar programs on to the web has been happening for a while but its latest incarnation has won the name of Web 2.0.

What is it - the definition is imprecise at best, but it loosely describes a category of websites that are known for interactivity, collaboration and community.

Developments in underlying web technology make this all possible and mean that what the sites can do is very new. Simplicity is often the key. Often it is an online application that does one thing and does it well.

CNET.com's Caroline McCarthy has a few favourites: "I have just started using a new site called Remember The Milk, which is a task manager. It's incredibly simple, a very easy to use list of things you have to do, places you have to go, things you have to buy, that sort of thing. "Clipmarks is a site where you can just share clips or portions of a website rather than the entire bookmark, so it's good for quotations.

"Tumblr is basically a blogging platform for people who don't want to use a blogging platform. If you look at things like Wordpress and Blogger, which a lot of people use to create blogs, they're very functional. Tumblr is very simple." Picturedots is a good example of the creativity that the so-called 2.0 sites display. You load in a photograph, trace the numbered dots on top of the image and print out the final result as a puzzle.

In a basic way it demonstrates how web browsers are gradually being used by consumers for far more than just looking around in cyberspace. "The idea of using your web browser as a tool is still a fairly new concept," explained Mark Chackerian of Picturedots.

"I'm an internet professional, for me my browser is like a Swiss Army Knife; I use it for a lot of things and in a much greater capacity than most people. "So for me to find a way to demonstrate to people how they can use their browser to do new kinds of things, makes me part of that new trend."