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Synopsis The growing ubiquity and pervasiveness of the web in day-to-day life of humans is having a profound impact on the way people socialize, network, communicate and collaborate on the web. Accelerated by the increasing activities on the Internet, coupled with path breaking innovation in web technologies, the web is transforming itself from being a sedate online publishing medium to a dynamic platform for collaboration. The emergence and wide acceptance of the new genre of web technologies, such as social networking, social bookmarking, wikis, blogs, podcasts, web communities etc., imply a significant change in the web usage. Encompassing these changes, the web has naturally evolved into its next generation, popularly known as ‘Web 2.0’. Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the web – a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects. Web 2.0 has emerged as a success in providing various services on the Internet, which helps the people in sharing the files and contributing their knowledge and views. The most popular Web 2.0 application examples are Flickr, Napster, Wikipedia and BitTorrent etc. The capabilities of real time collaboration provided by Web 2.0 have made them the most sought-after technologies in community building applications, search engines and lots of other e-business applications on the web today. Web 2.0 is about the maturity of the web and businesses that are thriving online. Thus, it makes an interesting topic for every citizen of this electronic world to understand and appreciate this new phenomenon on the web. This book presents interesting insights into the concepts, evolution, technologies, applications, and issues and risks related to Web 2.0.