Reflection on a facebook group (Web 3.0) PART II

What does the discussion board reveal?

I followed a discussion thread in defining web 3.0. Some of the users were experts in technology in general, others were specialists in web based technologies who posted meaningful comments and whose contribution enriched the members' knowledge. As in every community, there were people who posted superficial comments which indicate their shallow knowledge in the field. They were engaged in the discussion only to establish a presence.

Members' expectations of joining the groups differ. Some of them work to provide the others with their personal thoughts of web 3.0. They base their contributions on no grounds and they are writing to impress the other members and to gain a social status in this e-community. Others, are deviating from the main lines adding commentaries or new posts that are irrelevant to the main goals of establishing the group. On the other hand, it is impressive to find dedicated members who do research in order to share their findings with the others. I found such kind of members giving the weight to the group, allowing it to survive and attracting more people to join the community.

Although I ended up more bewildered than before because of the huge range of explanations due to the fact that conclusions are impossible at the moment, web 3.0 technologies are not yet released, I felt no regret of joining the group. This feeling is the result of finding some people working sincerely to define or forecast some of the features of the new technology. In addition to the definition set up by the moderate of web 3.0 as three dimensional, some claimed to hear in conferences that this generation is the "me". A member called " Manoj Joshi", for instance, explained this me as " it's no longer about going to your business networking site or our business networking site. It's about creating my own virtual experience or virtual network, built by me, for me, and that is my view of my social universe. " Some definitions made me in doubt of previous understanding of web 2.0. The member, Jean Russel, defined web 1.0 as information, web 2.0 as participation and web 3.0 as collaboration. This response contradicts the previously mentioned definition-web 3.0 is me- and my knowledge that web 2.0 also involves cooperation.

Such groups that allow much space to personal opinions make the user unable to use them as credible source of information. But, what is useful about them is that using critical thinking in selecting the most meaningful contributions and following the links if provided to check for more trusted sources of information.