Getting on with Government 2.0 - Department of Finance and ...

1.3.1 What is Web 2.0
Until recently activity on the internet was dominated by the website and email. This internet
enabling broadcast, point to point and hub and spoke activity through websites is termed
‘Web 1.0’.
Within the community and the market, Web 2.0 is only now becoming pervasive when much
of it was technically achievable over a decade ago. As commentators have observed, Web 2.0
emerged not as a function of new technology but because the ubiquity of internet technology
makes new ways of operating and interacting possible.
Web 2.0 enables connections and collaborations of all kinds. Social networking websites such as
Facebook 38 and Meetup.com 39 facilitate and enrich communication between people. Substantial
economic returns are generated by ‘ideas market’ Innocentive, 40 which brings together those
with technical problems and those who can solve them.
Search engines have facilitated collaboration between people whose search behaviour is
teaching the search engine to be more useful to future users. 41 Users of products come to build
the products themselves as with Wikipedia 42 43, 44
and stumbleupon.com.
Firms like Dell and Starbucks use Web 2.0 to engage their employees, suppliers and customers,
to identify existing problems and to co-design future products.
Web 2.0 tools can be used to create networks in which relationships can be made and deepened
whilst knowledge of all kinds, whether it be scientific expertise or the understanding of
something ephemeral and local is shared and further developed in the sharing. 45
1.3.2 The promise of Web 2.0
The potential to collaborate online and engage through Web 2.0 tools and approaches provides
both economic and social benefits. One calculation concludes that internet searches generate total
economic value of somewhere between 0.5 and 5 per cent of US gross domestic profit (GDP). 46
Other benefits of online engagement and collaboration are harder to assess because they do
not directly lower costs but improve quality of life. Search engines and wikis do not just save
time but produce more germane or more targeted and relevant results than previous methods.
Web 2.0 allows fine grained interaction between people with particular interests, expertise
or knowledge. For instance, a cancer patient can find others in the same predicament and, in
addition to gaining mutual support can share information about drug reactions, doctors and
specialists.
Blogs permit anyone with internet access to publish their thoughts globally and to invite
discussion from others on any topic imaginable. One benefit of this is the rapid identification of
those with the knowledge to speak authoritatively on a subject.
38 http://www.facebook.com.
39 http://www.meetup.com.
40 http://www.innocentive.com.
41 Search algorithms typically employ users’ selections of search results to optimise future searches for others.
42 http://www.wikipedia.org.
43 http://www.stumbleupon.com.
44 In this sense open source software which is typically built by volunteer individuals and/or firms was a precursor to
Web 2.0.
45 Except where otherwise suggested, references in this report to Web 2.0 and expressions like ‘online’ include
mediums that are not strictly part of the internet and which may not literally use cables, such as the mobile
network.
46 http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/10/the_value_of_se.php or http://tinyurl.com/y8u8rzk.
Engage: <strong>Getting</strong> on with Government 2.0 | report of the government 2.0 taskforce
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