AJAX otherwise know as Asynchronous Javascript And XML Allows For Interactive Web Experiences.
"Ajax (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), or AJAX, is a group of interrelated web development techniques used for creating interactive web applications or rich Internet applications. With Ajax, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page." Quoted from the wikipedia.org website

First off, let me explain a little bit about what AJAX is. AJAX is not a programming language. It is a technique that allows you to update the content on a web page without loading an entirely new page. For example: lets say you have a news page on your website. On that news page, you have a list of articles. Now, lets say that each article listing has a "read more" link under it. With AJAX, you could load the actual article into the existing page when the user clicks on the "read more" link. This can be done without having to create a whole new page that contains the actual article. Using this technique (AJAX) is quick, efficient, interactive, and has many advantages including:

Advantages

• It's faster than the traditional link to a new page. This is because the browser only gets the data that needs to be updated, not an entire page. Users may perceive your website to be faster, even though it has the same content as before.
• It's interactive and opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. You can update any page in real time without interaction from the user. Update statistics, change the content on a page depending on the day, etc.
• It can reduce your internet bandwidth usage and connections to the web server. This is because external files only need to be requested once. Images and stylesheets only need to be downloaded once.

Even though AJAX sounds great, I must let you know, that there are also some disadvantages to consider before you decide to use AJAX for your website. Here is a quick list of those disadvantages:

Disadvantages

• AJAX requests do not register themselves in the browsers history engine. This means that if the user has been clicking on the page, and things have been loading, the user cannot simply click the browser's back button to go back to a state before an AJAX load. So, with AJAX, the back and forward buttons are essentially useless.
• Bookmarks don't work. Although users can bookmark your AJAX enabled page, they cannot bookmark to a certain state of your page. If someone clicks on a link that loads a specific article, going back to that article would require them to click on the bookmark, then click on the link that loaded the article. (There are ways around this however)
• If a user has a browser that does not support AJAX, they will not be able to view your website (at least not as you intended them to). Older browsers and certain browsers that are not widely used suffer from this tragedy.

So what can be done using AJAX. Well as you can guess, the list is long, but here is a quick list of the many things that can be done.

• Build an interactive news page that loads articles as they are clicked.
• Build an interactive Live Chat application.
• Update sports results or statistics in real time.
• Have users upload files to your website and show them a real-time upload progress bar.
• Have your website reflect who is online in real time.
• Send the contents of a form without having to re-load the web page.
• Build a Web 2.0 interactive application that allows you to manage any type of data. (See Web 2.0 Software on this website)

If you can think of something that you would like your website or web application to do, and AJAX is the right technology to get it done, then we can help. OK, so what does all this cost? Well, the cost depends on the details of the project. The more complex the project, the higher the cost (naturally). We bill for AJAX programming at a rate of $1.25 / minute in 5 minute increments. So if your project takes an hour of programming time, you will find yourself paying $75. So, if you are interested in an AJAX enabled website or web application, and you want a professional AJAX programmer on the job, contact us today or request a quote and we would be happy to help you.