I was browsing through news.com.au and abc.net.au/news/, only to notice that they are Web 2.0 Compliant!

For those that aren’t aware what Web 2.0 is and how you can be compliant with it, I actually have my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. In the last two years or so, there has been a huge push for web applications, which act in a similar way to the traditional desktop application. One of the techniques which greatly helped kick start the web application phenomenon was a technology coined AJAX. Since that point in time, there has also been massive surge of community driven sites. If you could throw those two ingredients and a few other little things into a mixing bowl, you’d have what I roughly consider Web 2.0.

To keep this brief, I’ll give you a short list of some of the Web 2.0 and other hip and happening features they have:

• http://www.news.com.au
  • XHTML & CSS based designs
  • Blogs & lots of them
  • Bookmarking links into http://del.icio.us
  • Community news links into http://digg.com & http://www.newsvine.com
  • XML feeds
  • Flash based embedded video players
• http://www.abc.net.au/news/
  • XHTML & CSS based designs
  • Blogs
  • Podcasts
  • Linking into Google Maps
  • Linking into Wikipedia
  • XML feeds
  • Flash based embedded video players

In years gone past, news sites were very rigid and out dated compared to the current trends flashing around the internet. I’m glad to see the news sites are keeping up with the Jones; if they get lucky, providing some of the newer items such as podcasts might help them capture a market segment that they’ve never had before.