With Web 2.0 being all the rage lately (and already inspiring a backlash of sorts), I've been slow to really take the time to see what it's all about. I know it was sparked by some small companies taking some new approaches to how the web works--the most notable being companies like Google, Flickr, del.icio.us and even 37Signals--but I also know there's more to it than that.

It seems to be more of a movement than a technological advance, but the darling of the moment is AJAX, or Asynchronous Javascript And XML. I know there's some neat things AJAX can do in regards to the end user experience, and I also know that it's been around for years, mostly under the guise of DHTML. And for that reason, I'm leery of taking advantage of it.

Until I found script.aculo.us, where Thomas Fuchs has compiled a number of recently developed scripts and techniques to handle the most common AJAX effects and functions into one downloadable and easy-to-use package. Seemed easy enough, so I took the bait and started playing around with it.

For starters, I wanted to rearrange my home page a bit, but wanted an easy way for visitors to find all of the information on the page without have to scroll around. So I wanted a button or link that would instantly send the user to the right part of the page (either top or bottom). Now, I've seen this done plenty of times, and have put together a couple of scripts to do it myself in the past, but I wanted to see if scriptaculous could do it for me. I looked through all of the functions, and there it was--"Effect.ScrollTo". All I had to do was tell it which div to go to using the ID selectors and -presto!- there it is!

So now, maybe I'll be able to implement some basic functions with relative ease, even though I don't see any immediate need for anything else. Maybe it's just about keeping up with what's new, maybe it's about needing to know what the future might hold, but I wanted to see what was up with all this AJAX business, even at a basic level.

What I don't understand is all the rest of that fuss about Web 2.0.