So what is Web 2.0? Put most simply, Web 2.0 is the name given not to a new version of the web, but to the new way people use the web. No longer do people go on the web expecting to merely access information provided by others. Everyone can expect to comment on what they read, change it, rate it, and put up information of their own - all using dynamic and user-friendly features on the websites they visit.
Millions of people throughout the world are now using the web to engage with one another and collaborate very actively on all sorts of activities. They are sharing music, videos, print-ready photographs and of course text, also known as content. They now approach the Internet not just as a place to go find useful information but as a social place as well where they can make and develop relationships, network professionally and socially, and create an image for themselves. So Web 2.0 might also be called the “read-write web”1).
As we will see in this section, this shift has occurred thanks to a new emphasis on attractive, fun to use web interfaces (e.g. shiny new icons as depicted above) on web services that are actually useful and make it really easy to share content and network with others around that content.
As with all things Internet, it is best to jump right in. Let's learn some Web 2.0 vocabulary (see the glossary for detailed explanations of key terms) and look at three representative examples of types of Web 2.0 services. Via these examples we can gain an appreciation for the constellation of Web 2.0 services and the characteristics that make them powerful. We can then consider their relevance for Africa and the missions of African civil society organizations. You are encouraged to visit and explore the websites described.
Perhaps the best example of the “read-write” web is Wikipedia2), the self-pronounced “biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet”. Wikipedia is indeed an extremely convenient source of information on a wide range of topics, with more than two million pages of information created and maintained by millions of volunteer contributors around the world. A quick wikipedia search can bring an answer or definition in moments. The “wiki” tool used to create it is designed to facilitate collaboration and consensus building, so for example there is a discussion tab for every page where contributors discuss the page contents and hopefully resolve any disagreements so the information on the page is as accurate and balanced as possible. Contentious topics can be nominated to be checked by editors for their neutrality, and the discussion pages for those pages tend to make very interesting reading (take for example the Ebonics page3)). There is frequent debate surrounding the accuracy of information on Wikipedia, and while it is a very useful resource it generally is recognized (even by its own editors) that it should not be considered a reliable exclusive source for academic papers.4)
Meanwhile, a new generation of online community websites devoted to social networking is attracting a new generation of Internet users, who spend many hours a day checking their e-mail and exchanging photos and other information about themselves with their friends. “The process of using these sites is as simple as logging on, writing a bit about yourself and what you do, e-mailing your friends asking them to visit your profile, and before you know it, you're interacting with your friends, your friends' friends, and even people you've never met – all by sitting solo at your computer.”5)
Typical examples of trendsetting social networking sites are MySpace6) and Facebook7). Facebook is a social networking site originally created for university students to meet and keep in touch, while MySpace is more like an enormous bulletin board or forum where anyone can get an account and connect with others around shared interests. Two other well known social networking sites are Flickr8) and Youtube9), which facilitate connections via the sharing of photos and videos.
Beyond social networking sites is blogging and the so-called blogosphere, which are described on Wikipedia thus: “The notion of a blogosphere is an important concept for understanding blogs. Blogs themselves are essentially just the published text of an author's thoughts, whereas the blogosphere is a social phenomenon. What differentiates blogs from webpages or forums is that blogs can be part of a shifting Internet-wide social network formed by many links between different blogs. The blogosphere is emerging as a gauge of public opinion and cultural memes, and has been cited in both academic and non-academic work as evidence of rising or falling resistance to globalization, voter fatigue, and many other phenomena.”10)
Unlike Wikipedia (which is hosted by a charitable nonprofit) and online community websites (mostly nonprofit networks or commercial operations driven by advertising), the blogosphere exists because many independent blogs link to one another, forming an organic network of shared interest and concerns. The networking and linking of blogs is enhanced by innovative blog aggregator websites that make useful blogs easy to find and engage with such as Global Voices11), Technorati12) and FeedBurner13).
The best Web 2.0 websites appear to share the following seven characteristics:
Clear purpose and real utility
Creates a community around that purpose
Free to use or very affordable (usually tiered pricing with free lowest tier of service)
Easy and fun to join and use
Connects to or builds on other Web 2.0 sites
Allows anonymous (or pseudonymous) use
Contributors own and control their content and identity
The three Websites discussed above, Wikipedia, Flickr and Global Voices, all share these characteristics. In the table below, we have summarized how:
| Element | Wikipedia | Flickr | Global Voices |
| 1. Clear purpose and actually useful | Free Encyclopedia | Tagline: “The best way to Store, Search, Sort and Share your photos.” | Tagline: “The World is Talking. Are you listening?” Ensures that quality bloggers from around the world have their voices heard. |
| 2. Creates a community around that purpose | Tight-knit community of contributors and large base of visitors that use the site content | Amateur and pro photographers, anybody with a digital camera interested in sharing photos with friends or gathering with others around shared interests. The site encourages community building around topics, themes and geography. | Bloggers in the global south and people everywhere interested in alternative voices. A carefully selected team of “bridge bloggers” work very closely together as a team using online chat and other collaboration tools. |
| 3. Free to use or very affordable | Completely free - even possible to download complete versions for offline use | Free powerful but still limited account, reasonable annual fee for “Pro” account | Free to use for bloggers and readers - and always will be |
| 4. Easy and fun to join and use | The collaborative tools are very powerful and allow contributors to do a great deal directly from their web browser. For those passionate about their subjects the learning curve is reasonable. Readers find and use Wikipedia accidentally via Google searches or can come and find information quickly through search forms or well structured navigation. | Very strong focus on beautiful design and fast, user-friendly interfaces for adding titles or comments, managing photos and using photos in creative ways. | Beautiful, though content rich site. Allows visitors to begin reading right away using familiar online newspaper format, but also provides a useful set of tools for drilling down into the content by theme, country, blogger or other methods. |
| 5. Connects to or builds on other Web 2.0 sites | Wikipedia is developed using open source wiki software used by thousands of others, who also contribute to its constant improvement. Interwiki14) features enable wikis (and media like photos etc) to be linked to directly between wikis without using typical URLs/hyperlinks. Many Web 2.0 projects depend on Wikipedia, such as for example Moulin Wiki15). | Makes it easy to connect with a range of other services to upload and manage photos, display photos in various ways on any blog or website, and even to blog about any flickr photo on your own blog. Permits one to place photos one has taken on a community map. | Connects to many thousands of blog sites around the world by drawing on their content and helping to share their voices to new audiences. The site's incorporates typical blog features to connect blog postings to the blogs they are highlighting and to enable visitors to share postings on other feed aggregator websites and bookmarking websites. Recently, DW added a map to its site, which makes use of Google maps to create a geographic way to show where bloggers are located. |
| 6. Allows anonymous (or pseudonymous) use | Anyone can contribute questions or suggestions to the “discussion” pages on wikipedia without creating an account or logging in. It is possible to create an account without using your real name, and Wikipedia has an Username Policy16) that outlines the pros and cons for using a real name. | It is possible to create a Flickr account using a fake name and a free webmail account (e.g. gmail or yahoo) that is not tied directly to a person's real identity. | It is possible to comment on blog postings without providing an email address or real name. Bloggers around the world do blog pseudonymously (sometimes for safety reasons) and their postings (if they are good quality or interesting) are picked up by GV editors. |
| 7. Contributors own and control their content and identity | As a wiki, this is not strictly the case as it is with other Web 2.0 services. All content belongs to everyone. However, thanks to the wiki technology, it is possible to for example export entire sections of the wiki for alternate use (say on your own website if you decide you don't want to contribute to Wikipedia anymore but want to keep working on the content you were contributign to) and it is possible to revert back to previous versions if someone else changes your contribution and later the community agrees to return to your previous version. | Flickr photos can be made public, kept completely private, or shared with a personally approved contact list of friends and family. It is also possible to delete one's account, or to delete any pictures any time or to download them to one's own computer. It is possible to set the copyright or creative commons licensing for any picture as well to limit what people can legally do with your photos. The largest sizes can be restricted to prevent people from taking one's photos and using them in print publications. | Is a “bridge blog” or “blog aggregator” - the content on the GV site refers directly back to the blogs of highlighted bloggers. |
Open Source Software is an important feature of Web 2.0. According to the Open Source Initiative17), “Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.”
In the last year or so, several very good open source products have emerged that have brought Open Source software into the public consciousness, most notably the Firefox18) web browser. Firefox is extraordinarily user friendly, feature rich and runs on all major computer platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux). Thanks to Firefox and several other mainstream open source projects, the principles of Open Source are becoming more broadly understood and followed by Internet users.
Open Source Web 2.0 applications have similarly evolved and are becoming remarkably easy to use for non-technical people.
One outcome of this evolution is that Creative Commons19) has become a widely used standard for licensing online content. Creative Commons is to content what Open Source is to software. According to the Creative Commons Website, “Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from All Rights Reserved to Some Rights Reserved. We're a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free.”
Well designed Web 2.0 websites make it very easy for contributors to decide who can access their personal information and contributed content - nobody else, or just their friends and family, or everyone visiting the website. And if they allow everyone to access the content, then they can also decide to restrict its distribution using a copyright notice or - and here it becomes very exciting - to allow others to republish without asking first.
Creative Commons makes this possible for thousands of content creators on the Internet and thus ensures that content spreads widely and quickly, and that creativity is spurred rather than stifled.
If you look at the bottom of every page in this wiki document, you will see the creative commons logo and license statement, like this:
This wiki is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
By using this label, Kabissa is giving anyone permission to take the contents of the wiki pages and share them or create derivative works based on them - as long as they attribute Kabissa and release their work under the same license.
A compelling example for the impact of Open Source on Web 2.0 is WordPress20). WordPress is a wildly popular blogging tool with millions of users around the world. Other blogging services and tools are available, but WordPress has, thanks to its user friendliness and Web 2.0 philosophical approach, fast become the standard bearer for blogging tools. The tool makes it easy for anyone to create a blog that meets the seven elements rule discussed above - indeed, Global Voices is built using WordPress software.
Three variants are offered that are very useful for people as they become more acquainted with WordPress:
WordPress.com: An online service similar to others where anyone can sign up for free and start blogging in minutes
WordPress.org: a free open source software application that can be downloaded and installed on one's own server through a fairly user-friendly process
mu.WordPress.org: a sophisticated multi-user free open source software application for those seeking to offer an online blogging service themselves
In this manner WordPress is quintessentially Web 2.0: it supports and is supported by a broad band of blogging afficionados in its community with a range of technical capabilities that all have a vested interest in continued development and progress of the WordPress software and services.
In many ways Web 2.0 - as exemplified by Wikipedia, Flickr and Global Voices - represents an evolution in the philosophical approach people take to creating websites - whether they are to make money as commercial services, for use by advocacy networks or nonprofits, or even for personal or hobbyist purposes. Creators of powerful, useful Web 2.0 sites have clustered around a couple of very good principles that set them apart (the seven characteristics) and that motivate Web users to trust them and depend on them.
There has been a technological evolution as well, occurring hand in hand with the philosophical evolution. Freely distributable Open Source software has long been known to be a powerful alternative to Microsoft and other proprietary commercial software, but in practice real exposure to it has been mostly been limited to technical people or enthusiasts. This has changed with the arrival of popular, mainstream open source applications like Firefox and WordPress.
As a result, it has not only become fairly easy and inexpensive to create a website offering the full range of Web 2.0 functionality, but the principles of open source are becoming more mainstream and are filtering through into many aspects of online interactions by ordinary people - from creative commons licensing by hobbyist photographers to job seekers crafting their own persona online by taking ownership of their own online identities.
