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What is commonly called “Web 2.0” and also the “Social Web” – indicating already a new quality of online activities – comprises a wide spectrum of ideas, utopias, and business models. We can distinguish developments in technology, civil society, modes of production, and entrepreneurship that together and in interaction with each other make up the new possibilities of “Web 2.0”.
First, in terms of technology, there are countless new applications such as weblogs, wiki webs, instant messaging, podcasts, RSS, social networking sites, and many more. The new technologies are designed to enable mass user participation and flexible reorganization of applications by users who create and recombine content, code, and metadata (Bruns, 2007; Guenther & Schmidt, 2008; Schmidt, 2006). Second, with this technological empowerment, “Web 2.0” can also denote an optimistic vision of a new civil society and the idea of a neo-Habermasian global public sphere of open discourse where critical discussions are possible, unconventional views can be expressed freely and the power of the state is counter-balanced (see Habermas, [1962]1989). When the barriers to participation in new media are lowered, new arenas for exchanging information and opinions can emerge.
Third, the mode of production associated with “Web 2.0” is supposedly collaborative, heterarchical, and non-profit seeking. The content, code, and metadata going into such ‘open source’ products can challenge the proprietary solutions from the earlier days of the digital age (Benkler, 2006; Lessig, 2004). Fourth, it must be strongly emphasized, though, that the new opportunities are also part of a capitalist project that drives business and entrepreneurship ranging from e-commerce to a wealth of services and products offered by profit-seeking firms and individuals who use, maintain, or enhance the new technologies. It is by becoming more dynamic, integrative, interactive, and recombinant that the world of online media has entered into a new generation without a complete break from the internet of the 1990s.