Web 2.0Aaron Gemmell

User generated content Content self publishing- the use of

multimedia sharing sites, blogs and wikis allow users to create and distribute their own media content throughout the web within Web 2.0.

Encourages a prosumer culture with lowered barriers to entry for putting content onto the web.

The wisdom of the crowds Crowdsourcing content has meant that

the huge amount of people on the internet are able to create highly accurate information banks on websites such as Wikipedia. Many users are willing to contribute content for little or nothing.

Additionally crowdsourcing allows the generation of content which may have otherwise not been available to the masses.

Data on an epic scale The amount of online data is ever

increasing, many Web 2.0 applications find accessing this data to be hugely valuable.

However some people fear dataification is causing us to drown.

“Datafication is a modern technological trend turning many aspects of our life into computerised data and transforming this information into new forms of value”

Architecture of participation Through the use of an application of

service, the service itself gets better, this happens when the service has been designed to take user interactions with it in order to utilise them to better itself. An example of this is using Google Search, it takes inputs from users and records what they look at in order to provide better search suggestions.

Network effects, power laws & the long tail

The long tail shows how the internet has altered economics, commerce and consumption. The use of Web 2.0 allows users to access a wider variety of media products with ease and so a shift away from mainstream products in popular culture has occurred and more niche products are consumed.

Network effect- as more people start to use a service in which some interaction can occur with others the value to the increasing users increases.

The Power Law- The larger a network, the increased likelihood of someone finding material useful and relevant to them.

Openness An internet “tradition” of working in an open

and collaborative way in order to produce better content through the use of crowdsourcing.

For example the use of Open-Source software where the copyright owner allows anyone to change and distribute their software for any purpose. This means that instead of many people creating software that does the same thing time can be saved in the use of this pre-existing software.