Focus: Web 2.0

Advances in Internet technologies offer huge opportunities. They give people a new space to make a statement, lots of statements. But they also raise concerns about loss of identity or the true value of communication.

Social Networking

Extract from an interview in the 2008 February Review magazine.

Remember the 1995 film Denise calls up? It tells the story of a group of friends and acquaintances–only they communicate exclusively by phone and fax in the days when the www was a mere twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye.
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Paradigm of Expression

Extract from the 2008 February Review magazine.

Laurence Allard is a French academic specialized in semiology. She has recently focused on the digital culture and Internet activism. Gemalto Review asked her a few questions about how the Internet is changing cultures and behaviours.
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The rise and fall of social network sites

Extract from the 2008 February Review magazine.

Social network sites started life around 10 years ago. Since then they have attracted millions of users–particularly in the past three or four years. Here’s an overview of where they come from.
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What is a social network site?

“We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them. What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. ”