The case for reflective middleware
Communications of the ACM - Adaptive middleware
Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture
Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture
Working for Free? - Motivations of Participating in Open Source Projects
HICSS '01 Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences ( HICSS-34)-Volume 7 - Volume 7
Communications of the ACM
Realizing the unexploited potential of games on serious challenges
Computers in Entertainment (CIE) - Theoretical and Practical Computer Applications in Entertainment
Understanding the impact of bloggers' self-disclosure on resilience
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Ubiquitous Information Management and Communication
Entertainment beyond divertissment: using computer games for city road accessibility
Computers in Entertainment (CIE) - Theoretical and Practical Computer Applications in Entertainment
Entertainment technology transfer toward serious use
Proceedings of the 5th International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques
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Web 2.0 is affecting the structure of our society by creating new spaces of freedom, giving voice to any opinion, easing interpersonal relationships, and encouraging the creation of collaborating collectivities. Technologies such as blog, podcasting, wiki, and news feeds have the power to transform every user from a mere information consumer to a potential producer, from a spectator to an actor. The success of YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and Wikipedia is under everybody's eyes. Generally speaking, Web 2.0 is seen as a powerful tool that, by exploiting Internet technologies, supplies services to the society, helping the entire socio-cultural system to develop and to move toward a democratic direction. Unfortunately, this imagery is partially distorted: first, Web 2.0 and Internet technologies are differently accessible by different parts of the society and, second, as many sociologists pointed out, their applications often appeal to users' egoistic purposes and self-celebration spirit. Although we cannot dismiss the value of current Web 2.0 applications, we are convinced there is a much more valuable potential that has not been exploited yet. By comparing the immense benefits that Web 2.0 could bring to the whole society, with its factual employment, one could provocatively change the meaning of the acronym WWW into World Wide Waste. We are hence convinced that it is necessary to redesign the utilization paradigm of Web 2.0 and, in general, of the Internet in order to recycle unused parts of Web 2.0 into altruistic bricks that could be appropriately rerouted and composed for alternative, unselfish employment.