Web 2.0 - Process or Package?

The expression ‘Web 2.0’ sounds like some kind of Internet update package that users download in order to keep up to date with technology. However, what many people do not realise is that Web 2.0 is not a technical update, easily downloaded with the click of a button, but a term coined to describe the gradual change in how the Internet is now being used. Web 2.0 largely concerns the rise of the ‘produser’ and their growing participation in the virtual world. This is in stark comparison to Web 1.0, which drew distinct lines between professional producers and consumers.

As identified by Joe in Darren Barefoot’s blog, Web 1.0 was all about reading, companies, home pages, lectures, content and advertising. On the contrast, he sees Web 2.0 as regarding writing, communities, peer-to-peer, web services, blogs, conversation, and amateur opinion rather than professional information. This sits well with Bruns’ description of Web 2.0 as “involving large communities of users, who act without an all-controlling, coordinating hierarchy …” (Bruns, p1). Web 2.0 also allow for content creators and consumers (commonly referred to as produsers) to “operate along lines which are fluid, flexible, heterarchical and organised ad hoc as required by the ongoing process of development…” (Bruns, p1).

It is this flexibility and growing reception of non-professional opinion and conversation that has led to the greater participation of individual citizens in the virtual world. Consumers now demand the right to actively take part in and question the world around them, no matter their level of expertise on the given subject area.

Accordingly, businesses have had to change the way they operate, paying particular consideration to Web 2.0 and its economic consequences. Various industries have had to seek out new business models that allow for them to “harness the content created by [online] communities … for their own purposes … rather than hindering the creation and distribution of content created” (Bruns, 4). In order to survive in the new economy, businesses need to embrace and engage with the growing number of produsers, rather than to restrain them.

Reference
Bruns, Dr Axel. “Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage”. (http://produsage.org/files/Produsage%20-%20Introduction.pdf). (ch 1).