ReadWriteWeb

The term "Web 2.0" isn't often used these days, but it signifies the era of the Web in which social, read/write technologies came to the fore. Google was the golden child in Web 2.0, whereas Facebook is the equivalent today in the 'Social Media' era. Regardless of the terminology, the leading Internet companies of today are more competitive with each other than ever before. Whether it's Google+ vs. Facebook in social networking, Microsoft vs. Google in search, Yahoo! vs. itself in just about everything else, it's good to step back and take a higher level view of the current Web era.

That's what the Web 2.0 Map aims to do. It's updated annually by the organizers of the Web 2.0 Summit, one of the leading tech events on the calendar. New in this year's map is The Data Layer, which represents the major Internet companies as "cities of data."

It's now a little over 6 months into 2010, so a good time to reflect on the highlights of the year so far. At the beginning of the year, we identified some key trends to track: (in alphabetical order) Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Mobile, Real-Time Web, Structured Data.

Mobile and Real-Time Web have been particularly eventful in 2010, as you'll see below. Augmented Reality and Internet of Things are both early stage trends, but have continued to edge towards the mainstream this year. The movement towards Structured Data has made significant progress in 2010, primarily thanks to RDFa and the adoption of that Semantic Web format by Facebook, Google and other big companies.

For any blogger, your first chicklet was probably your RSS subscriber stats via FeedBurner. For some, this chicklet marked the beginning of a long journey ahead. It was a sign that your blog was prospering and someone out there was listening. Now, your prosperity and popularity doesn't have to be limited to just your blog. Here are a few chicklets from popular sites and services to show off on your blog.