---
title: "Help 2.0: The Convergence of Help with Web 2.0"
date: 2007-01-02
description: "$( document ).ready(function() { // Handler for .ready() called. $("
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2007/01/02/help-20/
---
# Help 2.0: The Convergence of Help with Web 2.0
Help 2.0 is what might be called Web 2.0 applied to help documentation. We are becoming used to seeing websites equipped with Web 2.0 features, and it's only a matter of time before the technical writing community catches up and begins integrating the same features.

### Defining Web 2.0

Web 2.0 may not have an exact definition everyone agrees with, but few will dispute that in part, it means building features into your site or application that allow users to become contributors to the content. The degree to which users can contribute defines the level on the Web 2.0 scale. For the most extreme applications, the entire content is driven by users. In other instances, users may contribute only a little, but this contribution still becomes part of the site or application's appeal.

### Top Web 2.0 Websites

The following websites might all be classified as Web 2.0 sites:

[Digg](http://digg.com). All of this site's content comes from users who contribute links and short comments on interesting articles they discover on the web. Users then digg or bury the stories that appear on the home page. Super popular stories can be dugg thousands of times. The posts are then sorted by popularity, based on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.

[Wikipedia](https://wikipedia.org). This well-known online encyclopedia attempts to cover all of human knowledge. There is no staff of paid writers. It is an enormous wiki that anyone can contribute to. Additionally, anyone can edit the content. Further, the administrators who maintain the content on the myriad servers are also volunteer. What is surprising about Wikipedia is that it actually works -- there are millions of articles in more than a dozen languages.

[Flickr](http://flickr.com). This popular photo sharing website allows you to upload your photos and share them with others. You tag your photos with keywords, and others can search for the photos by keyword. In fact, the banner on this website is from a panorama shot from Flickr. You can subscribe to user feeds and group feeds, and also comment on others' photos. Again, all of the content for this site is driven by users. They produce the content for the site, and others build on that content.

[Zooomr](http://zooomr.com). While I mention Flickr, I should also note that Zooomr takes the idea of Flickr to a new level -- it's just not as popular yet. But Zooomr incorporates geotagging that allows you to see interesting geographic details related to the photos you're looking at. I think it is a mashup with Google maps.

[Amazon](http://amazon.com/). Obviously you've heard of Amazon, but they also have some popular Web 2.0 features in their website. Users can write reviews of books and also rate them. When you make a selection, the site recommends similar selections that other users like you made.

[Allrecipes.](http://allrecipes.com) One of the best recipe sites on the web, allrecipes.com allows users to submit their own recipes to the site. Others can write reviews of the recipe and rate them. When you make searches, you can limit the results to recipes that only met a certain high rating, or that do not contain certain ingredients. You can view the top 20 rated recipes

[WordPress](http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page). The WordPress Codex, the site that contains all of the documentation for the WordPress blogging engine, is a spectacle of user contributed help content. It contains hundreds of instructional articles and information that users contribute and edit regularly. The site also has an extensive help forum that users regularly search and respond to.

[Sparkpeople](http://sparkpeople.com). One of the most interesting diet and nutrition sites, Sparkpeople integrates blogs and community teams on their site, allowing users to form groups with similar goals to maintain enthusiasm. The communities can be based on similarity of background, location, or other criteria. The site also offers goal tracking capability, and calorie counting ability. If a food you want to enter is not available, you can enter the details. The food is then entered into the system and available to others.

[Payscale](http://payscale.com). You may not have heard of Payscale, but it is an amazing salary comparison tool. Most salary comparison tools have general information about your job salary based on statistics from government organizations, or from other generic databases. But this tool has you enter in your details very specifically, including geographic area, number of years in profession, size of company, etc. As you enter your own information, it becomes the basis upon which other salaries are compared. Your average salary is then calculated based on very specific comparisons to others who entered criteria similar to you.