Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the Web, argues that Web 2.0 is not a separate entity but merely a continuation of the existing Web.

The last decade has seen a tremendous surge in the growth of internet. It is estimated according to a report by Jupiter Research that online population will increase from 1.1 billion users in 2006 to 1.5 billion in 2011, representing 22 percent of the overall worldwide population in that year. Source : Business Wire

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in his book :The World is Flat:A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
has rightly brought forth the concept of “flattening” of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place.

Health care is one industry that has to run even faster to keep with the pace.Medical tourism is one of the byproduct of flattening of the globe.Health Care is currently dominated by paper and pen could progress on to tablet PC and stylus and also networked collaboration.

The other features are extension of use of web constructively to benefit patient.To make it more patient centric in terms of provision of health related information.
Physicians could play a vital role in this direction.Although,physicians are not web designers or experts in terms of design of the website and its maintenance,yet they could provide relevant content.

Wiki environment provides a great tool for online collaboration,however the although the current Wikipedia rivals enclycopedia Britannia in terms of volume of data.Yet,in medical related category transparency of editors and also accuracy of data is very important.

Next,important issue is whether it is evidence-based.Mere citation of references alone is not sufficient to state the accuracy of data.There should be a constructive dialogue between the various experts in the particular area of specialization.

Finally,Medicine is an ever changing field. Standard safety precautions must be followed, but as new research and clinical experience broadens our knowledge, changes in treatment and drug therapy may become necessary or appropriate.Constant updating of relevant medical information and also verification of authenticity of the information is a very important step.

A Web 2.0 Glossary Source :Government Health IT

Asynchronous JavaScript and EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE: AJAX is a type of programming that uses a combination of markup and scripting languages to create interactive applications in which only certain pieces of the content on each Web page have to be refreshed, making the Web faster and more responsive.

Blog: Web logs, more commonly known as blogs, are user-generated sites written in a journal format that can incorporate reader comments, graphics and hyperlinks to other sites.

CROWDSOURCING: Crowdsourcing, although not strictly a Web 2.0 term, is gaining currency as a way of describing the potential of thousands of individuals to come together through the Web to provide solutions to problems that in the past have only been able to be addressed, if at all, by much smaller groups of professionals.

FOLKSONOMY: Folksonomy is a way of tagging content that is created by the user community itself rather than being imposed from the outside as a set standard. It makes content that is relevant to particular users more easily navigable and searchable over time.

Mashup: A mashup is a way of seamlessly integrating content from various online sources into a single Web site or application.
Podcast: A podcast is an audio file that a user can listen to on a Web site or download for playing later on a computer or a device such as Apple Computer’s iPod, other MP3 players or, increasingly, cell phones.

Really Simple Syndication: RSS is a way of marking content on a Web site so users can receive an alert every time it is updated. New content is collected by and presented in RSS readers, or aggregators, so users don’t have to visit Web sites to retrieve the information.

REST: Representational State Transfer refers to software architecture principles that capture the best ways for moving resources across networks. In the case of the Web, it means the best way for a user to move from one Web page to another via hyperlinks.

SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE: Service-oriented architecture is the concept behind the way applications can be delivered via the Web as a set of services that exist within the Internet rather than on specific computers or servers. Although not strictly a Web 2.0 term, it is the core platform by which Web 2.0 services are accessed and distributed.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: This term is borrowed from the social sciences and relates to formal structures that show how relationships develop between individuals in a network. Applied to the Web, it refers to the driving force behind sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Tags: Tags are one or more keywords assigned to pieces of stored information — such as text articles, pictures or audio files — so Web browsers’ search engines can identify and display them.

Vodcast: A video podcast plays on computers, mobile players and cell phones.

Wiki: A wiki is a site maintained by a community whose members share their expertise and interests by writing or editing content in a collaborative environment.

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