Web 2.0 revisited: user-generated content as a social innovation

Bastian Pelka and Christoph Kaletka

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2011, vol. 5, issue 2/3, 264-275

Abstract: This paper raises the question whether Web 2.0 can be seen as a technological or a social innovation and which interdependencies exist between these two innovative aspects of the phenomenon. For that purpose, the definition of Web 2.0 as a tag cloud (for example given in Wikipedia) or as a difference in comparison to a ‘Web 1.0’ is revisited, challenged and discarded. In following steps, the paper argues that the core innovation of Web 2.0 is the communication of ‘user-generated content’ as a new social routine. The main enabling factors for Web 2.0 utilisation as a social routine are identified as easy-to-use software and broadly spread internet access. So while technology is seen as a ‘catalyst’ of the phenomenon, the innovation itself (user-generated content) is considered a social one.

Keywords: Web 2.0; social web; social innovation; user-generated content; wikis; blogs; virtual communities; online communities; web based communities. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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