Chapter 7 - ThisisSocialMedia,PeerProduction,andWeb2.0,...

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This is “Social Media, Peer Production, and Web 2.0”, chapter 7 from the book Getting
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Table of Contents
Chapter 7
Social Media, Peer Production, and Web 2.0
7.1 Introduction
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Recognize the unexpected rise and impact of social media and peer production systems, and
understand how these services differ from prior generation tools.
2. List the major classifications of social media services.
Over the past few years, a fundamentally different class of Internet services has attracted users,
made headlines, and increasingly garnered breathtaking market valuations. Often referred to

under the poorly defined umbrella term “ Web 2.0 ,” these new services are targeted at harnessing
the power of the Internet to empower users to collaborate, create resources, and share information
in a distinctly different way than the static Web sites and transaction-focused storefronts that
characterized so many failures in the dot-com bubble. Techies often joust over the precise
definition of Web 2.0, but these arguments aren’t really all that important. What is significant is
how quickly the Web 2.0 revolution came about, how unexpected it was, and how deeply impactful
these efforts have become for individuals, businesses, and society. Consider the following:
Six of the world’s top ten most heavily trafficked Internet sites are social: Facebook, YouTube,
Blogger.com (considered separately from parent Google), Wikipedia, Twitter, and QQ.com
(China).Via Alexa.com, June 1, 2011. Via Alexa.com, June 1, 2011. U.S. users now spend more
time with social media than on any other category of Internet use.“What Americans Do Online:
Social Media and Games Dominate Activity,” NielsenWire, August 2, 2010.
It took just three years for the number of social sites in the top ten to grow from one to six.
However, the list is volatile, and half of the top social sites from three years ago (MySpace, Hi5,
Orkut) are no longer ranked in the top ten.Morgan Stanley, Internet Trends Report , March
2008. Morgan Stanley, Internet Trends Report , March 2008.
With only seven full-time employees and an operating budget of less than $1 million,
Wikipedia has become the fifth most visited site on the Internet.G. Kane and R. Fichman, “The
Shoemaker’s Children: Using Wikis for Information Systems Teaching, Research, and
Publication,” MIS Quarterly , March 2009. G. Kane and R. Fichman, “The Shoemaker’s