For the 5th entry? in my blog? series on Web 2.0 Technology Topics, I turn to web feed readers. Feed readers are software that resides either on your personal computer (Mac, Windows, Linux) or on a web server and allow you to collect content from a variety of different websites into one single place.

A Feed Reader is a really powerful and important tool in my arsenal as a "Web 2.0? citizen." As the breadth and depth of content/people with which I engage grows, it becomes overwhelming to follow by checking each website. Even if I could get email notices, that pummel my email inbox, which I try to preserve for emails specifically to me from colleagues, friends and family.

One of the most powerful technologies in the Web 2.0? arsenal isn't so much a technology as it is a style of communication. I'm referring to a blog , which derives it name from the combination of the words web log, meaning a website where entries are written and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. You can learn from links at the end of this article, but here I'll focus on understanding backend technology.

In fact, blogs have been built by virtually every kind of technology, such as plain HTML, ASP, JSP, PHP, CFM, etc. Consequently, what's important is not the programming language, but rather the architecture (meaning the components).

I thought it would be appropriate to start my series of web 2.0? technology definitions with the term Web 2.0 itself.

Much is being made these days of the term “Web 2.0”, as well as the related term “Enterprise 2.0”. To some this is just a catch phrase that represents another passing fad. A reason for companies to spend more money on new technologies. To others, it offers real possibilities to tap the tacit knowledge base of employees, increase their engagement, improve relationships with customers and much more.

So what is Web 2.0, really? In this first article, I’ll set the context for understanding Web 2.0. Then in the next few articles I’ll explore definitions of Web 2.0, with leading practice examples and ideas for how you could get started or raise your practices to the next level.

As a way of exploring the use of the blog? feature on this site, and building some common vocabulary around key terms that will be useful to our technology planning, I thought I would post a series of blog entries on Web 2.0? Technologies.

These articles will intentionally be short and written for non-techies. Here's an initial list of Web 2.0 technology topics I thought I would cover. As articles are written, the topics here will link to them.

• What is Web 2.0?
• Blog technology -- the architecture of a blog
• Web Feed technology -- How to publish content from one site to other sites or to personal RSS?/Atom Readers
• Feed Reader Technology -- a tool that an individual can use to track postings to tens or hundreds of websites and blogs
• Drupal? platform -- An open-source LAMP? CMS? (content management system? based on Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP)
• AJAX -- a popular technology for creating real-time updates to webpages without having to refresh them
• Mashup -- The use of a thin layer of technology to combine two or more disconnected sites into an even more powerful combination
• Wiki? -- A simple tool to facilitate unstructured content collaboration
• Shared Calendar -- how to publish/manage an online calendar for a group or the general public (Google, Upcoming, etc.)
• iCal Reader/Subscriber -- how to subscribe to a shared calendar
• Joomla? -- another open-source LAMP CMS
• Ruby on Rails -- another popular technology for building Web 2.0 systems
• OpenID -- A fairly new standard for using a single userid/password to login to multiple websites
• SOAP/REST/JSON-based APIs -- ways of allowing websites to talk to each other (this is really web 1.0)
• Folksonomy -- how to categorize and popularize web content (Del.icio.us, Digg, etc.)
• Facebook / MySpace (and other social networking sites)
• Skype / Twitter (and other Video/Instant Messenger services)
• CSS and Theming -- Cascading Style Sheets, a key tool used to control the look and feel of a website and how content is presented, which is generally referred to as theming.