Web 2.0 represents the evolution of the web from a social tool to an integrated part of our society and the world. But while it has become the buzzword of the decade, it is still often misunderstood.

1. Personalized Start Pages

A replacement to popular search portals like Google and Yahoo, personalized start pages let you gather what is important to you in a central place and are increasingly being used to boost productivity by keeping up with to-do lists and acting as an event scheduler.

2. Social Bookmarking and Social News

Having started out as a way to store your browser bookmarks online so that you can utilize them on different computers and share them with friends, social bookmarking has grown to such an extent that it can now be used to search the web instead of relying on traditional search engines.

Spawned from social bookmarking, social news is a great way to find the quality articles in an ocean of news and to engage in discussions about current events, sports, technology, or other interesting subjects.

3. Social Networking

Whether it is gathering businesses relationships, or making friends, social networking has always been a central force in our lives. Web 2.0 is bringing social networks alive on the web by merging new technologies with the Internet.

4. Web Mashups

A mashup is the combination of two or more data sources under a unified interface, usually creating something unique through the combination. Confused? These articles will help break it down for you, point you to the best mashups Web 2.0 has to offer and even show you how to make your own web mashups.

5. Widgets

A great source of utility and fun, widgets are broken into two basic categories: the web widget and the desktop widget. A web widget is a small piece of code that can be placed on a website or blog, such as embedding a video from YouTube. A desktop widget is a small application that runs on your desktop, sometimes accessing the Internet for information, such as a desktop widget that shows the local temperature and weather.

6. Wikis

A simple collaborative content management system, wikis have burned through the Internet like a wildfire. Their ease-of-use and ability to pool together the knowledge of people from all over the world have made them a popular resource for the web savvy and the web novice alike.