TOPIC 3
Web 2.0 Transcending Boundaries:
Unexpected Applications in Other Regions and Cultures
The evolution of Web 2.0 technologies has ushered in a new era of the democratization of information. The traditional model of top-down information dissemination is replaced by harnessing collective intelligence and relying on the wisdom of crowds. Web 2.0 is also about the people. It enhances the social aspects of publishing, retrieving and dissemination of information and allows Internet users to look for new ways to connect with others.
Contents
Background
Tim O’Reilly calls Web 2.0 a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core. His Web 2.0 meme* map is illustrated below.
Most importantly, Web 2.0 transcends boundaries. This encompasses the entire spectrum of government-citizen relations, overcoming cultural and geographical barriers and expanding existing development, business and interest-based communities.
Our projects highlight ways in which Web 2.0 has transcended different boundaries in several developing countries.
Below is a link to gapminder, a site which tracks different variables from countries around the world as they change over time.This link shows internet penetration in the developing countries which we analyzed in our case studies as well as internet penetration in the United States as a comparison.
Internet penetration in the case study countries
*Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene, where he postulated that ideas replicate, evolve and are tranferred from one individual to another by following the principles of biological evolution.
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