NEW YORK -- If there is one application that propelled the term AJAX into the mainstream it is Google Maps.

Before Google Maps, the Internet world was a flat place without dragable maps and without online mailboxes that looked like their desktop counterparts.

Google project manager Bret Taylor said AJAX has become a mainstream development approach since he and his team rolled out the first AJAX version of Google Maps in 2005, with sites big and small implementing the technology.

"AJAX has revolutionized the way people expect Web applications to behave," Taylor told a capacity crowd at the AjaxWorld conference here. "Users now expect the same level of interactivity as the desktop."

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