Last Name 1 FirstName LastName Professor Name Subject Name 19th April 2009

IT in the Next Five Years: Social Networking and Web 2.0

Introduction & Scope of Work

Before proceeding to the different tasks covering the assignment, there are certain objectives that we have identified as serving the purpose of this assignment: 1. The overall identification of the available methods of enquiry, their purpose, advantages and limitations. This would help us in selecting a method of research enquiry to gather and evaluate the information related to one of the technologies, as well as to identify the scope of our effort, saving on time and the overall costs incurred in the effort. 2. Once identified, we have to select a technology we wish to evaluate from various perspectives, especially determining the implications of the selected technology on individuals and society in general as well as its viability on ethical grounds. 3. We will then assess the impact of the selected technology in an organization of our choosing, with an analysis of the consequences likely to be encountered during and after its implementation. This would also allow us to determine its impact on the overall lifecycle of information systems, with specific attention to the planning stage. 4. After assessing the impact of the technology on the organization, we would go on to consider the ethical issues that might be faced by the organization while developing / implementing such technology.

Last Name 2

TASK 1
Method of Enquiry Analytic Deductive Purpose Generalized concepts to specific components Advantages Limitations

Knowledgedriven All conclusions reached follow logically from premises

Time consuming

Conflicting components

Enquiry is accomplished based on set hypothesis

Enquiry is conducted based on observations, resulting in confirmation of components

Used in arguments

Last Name 3 based on accepted rules, Systems Thinking principles. Interaction between the part being studied and other parts making up the system Useful in complex problemsolving (Aronson) Feature-driven Enquiry commences by forming tentative hypothesis Enquiry is conducted on the basis of the observation of subcomponents

Identification of the system structure behind problems

Insufficient capacity Difficulty in providing credible explanation

Testing possible for both against intended / unintended consequences

Inductive Consensual

Specific components to a generalized concept

A degree of uncertainty May vary from person-toperson

Last Name 4 in an attempt to identify patterns that suggest a generalized concept linking all components Used in arguments based on observations

TASK 2
Based on the methods of enquiry mentioned above, this has become apparent that each method has a high level of usability in specific situation suiting their requirements. In view of the assignment at hand, as well as the selection of the technology I wish to explore, Web 2.0 and its effects on people and society, the analytical approach to using enquiry, deductive reasoning, is suited for the purpose, owing to a large number of reasons. Firstly, using analytic deductive will allow us to divide the premise at hand, Web 2.0, a large ground to cover, into smaller, manageable parts. With a broad overall spectrum of Web 2.0, we can be forced to shift our focus, eventually resulting in the research of unmanageable scope. Deductive analysis will allow us to identify component parts at an initial stage, thereby narrowing the overall effort to a controlled

Last Name 5 activity. This will also allow the organization under review to select a large problem at hand, and chip it down to the parts of importance to the organization. Secondly, for the purpose of this assignment, this is highly imperative that the impacts of Web 2.0 on different levels of classification, individual, collective as well as ethical grounds, specifically negative ones, are identified, which can only be done by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the components, making up the new technology evolution. This can also help in the organizations looking for future solutions to assess the impact of the new technology as well as its acceptability by its customers, the employees and the society in general. Thirdly, we can sharpen our focus, using this method, on the specific needs of the assignment. Hence, I have broken down the overall context of this new concept, into component parts, listed as follows: 1. The early days of the web 2. Web 2.0 3. Legal Implications of Web 2.0 With the task at hand, I will now go about analyzing each component individually to determine how they contribute to the overall impacts of the evolution, or rather an evolution we know as Web 2.0

The Early Days of the Web

From the very early days since the internet was formed, newsgroups, mailing lists had always been there to allow for interaction with a group of individuals at the same time. Newsgroups also served as an early manifestation of the internet communication and community. Usenet, introduced in 1979, had also been initially meant to facilitate

Last Name 6 transfer of files, but its structure, a hierarchical newsgroup system made it a popular method of publicly exchanging messages. The emergence of the World Wide Web in 1992 sparked new life in social and collaborative communication with bulletin boards and forums moving onto the web. While some maintained their existence as standalone operations, others linked themselves to sites offering original content by paid staff or freelancers. And while there existed many stable and popular online communities founded as bulletin boards, the rise of Web 2.0 made creating and sustaining online communities faster, easier and broader in terms of ease of use, convenience and interactivity, and more complicated in terms of privacy, control and reputation.

Web 2.0
The year 2001 served as a turning point for the web with the crash of the dot-com phenomenon. With its crash however, people assumed that it had been overhyped to the extent that such a crash was imminent. However, all technologies are marred by such tremors appearing to be common in most, if not all, technological revolutions. These tremors occur at the time, when new technologies begin to take shape and their new place as the centre of a new phenomenon. This is what separates one technology from the other. Web 2.0 emerged initially at a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International (Aguiton). Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, observed that the dot-com crash didnt end it there and then. Theres lots more coming up. The web could be used in an excitingly and surprisingly larger number of ways. He also observed that companies that have managed and paved their way in the

Last Name 7 worst of this collapse seemed to have some common attributes. These attributes turned out towards a call to action, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born. So, what is Web 2.0? The term was first coined in 2004 by Tim Reilly, major software and Internet technology publisher, who developed the definition in 2005 to describe the common characteristics of web-based start-ups that survived the 2001 dot.com bust: ..a network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications & [are] delivering software as a continuallyupdated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an architecture of participation, and & deliver rich user experiences. (O' Reilly) Web 2.0 has been developed based on certain principles that cover the characteristics of services and features this phenomenon has to offer. Some of these are: Enabling web as a platform (George) The web has been designed to create and distribute services as well as to effectively harness the collective power of users. BitTorrent can be viewed as an excellent example of this, a tool that allows making every client machine a server, splitting files into segments to be able to share from multiple locations. Each new user in the network brings further capability through an architecture of participation which is implicitly formed, where users corroborate each other. Cost-effective and a scalable network of service delivery This allows for efficient network scalability, through increased use, creating room for continuous improvement at almost no cost.

Last Name 8 Unique and hard-to-create data sources (George) can be effectively controlled, adding richness with increasing number of users. Amazon.com, for example gathers basic data on books, adds richness to it with the information supplied by publishers while also claiming ownership over user review received on book purchases. This has turned it into the most important primary source of bibliographic data on books. Can users really be co-developers (George)? Web 2.0 proves they can be. With the advent of open-source practices of application development, products are and can be improved on a daily basis. Wikipedia is a perfect example. Users can add and continually update the contents provided by Wikipedia regularly, based on the activities of the users. Strapping up collective intelligence (George) to influence decisions Examples include: Amazon uses buyers reviews to catalyze user purchases as well as user search activities to produce better results; Wikipedias repository of information which allows web users to make entries and hence contribute to a body of knowledge which can be accessed and shared globally. Lightweight user interfaces (George), development models and business models, allowing simplicity and reusability. A basic purpose of Web 2.0 is the support of loosely (rather than tight) coupled systems; syndication (rather than coordination); and hackability and remixability. Some people think that Web 2.0 is just an evolution from its predecessor that will not bring about dramatic changes. This however is not a mere technology shift. It is more of a revolution that has changed the paradigm of the web, by using basic characteristics of the web to create new services, propose newer business models, and

Last Name 9 engage internet users in exhibiting behaviours, new, interesting, intricate and having its own legal and ethical implications. The newer version of the web, 2.0, has been aimed at creating more interactive forms than ever before, based on a variety of technologies, from Ajax to BitTorrent, to RSS and Wikis. In light of the initial objective of designing the internet, to increase collaboration and social exchanges, this form of the web has indeed brought us to the basics of where we started from, or where we wanted to be. However, this has brought with itself an explosion in the commerce industry, which has actually sidelined the original purpose of being a Global Village to actually a Global Super Market. (Barbry) The emergence of Web 2.0 can be deemed as return-to-the-roots, through new social and community forms, however this is only a part of the puzzle, since commercial web is the key player of Web 2.0 (Barbry). Although it is the dawn of the new sun, the collaborative and social web, it is and will remain a commercial web, through a variety of activities and services that are directly (sale of services or payment of a fee) or indirectly (sale of advertising spaces and/or customer data) commercial activities.

Legal Implications of Web 2.0

Although Web 2.0 allows for effective collaboration between individuals as virtual societies, there can be lots of social, ethical and especially legal implications of doing so. Some of these implications are discussed below: 1. Intellectual Property A major concern following Web 2.0 infrastructure is the one relating to intellectual property ownership, especially copyright of information. While

Last Name 10 Web 2.0 provides attractive means for ordinary users to upload their contents and publish their material online, users may publish information already owned by other authors, hence infringing on copyrighted information. Publishing such information as literature, photography, music, painting, videos as well as other types of copyrighted information has become the norm, since users are very less concerned about copyright laws, resulting in an outrage by the copyright owners. It is due to this concern that some website clearly state in their terms and conditions that all the material uploaded on their website belongs to users. At the very same time, the other side to the ownership of information poses risks for the company gathering information and ideas from its employees, users that use the service on a regular basis. In cases where the company wishes to move ahead with the idea, this becomes a serious concern as to whether this idea / information is owned by the company providing users with the infrastructure or the users presenting the companies with the ideas on a specific topic / discussion. A similar concern also arises in cases where the information presented by the users on a public network are acquired by competing companies and used as their ideas in light of weak policies of information ownership available with the company providing the users with its infrastructure. 2. Privacy Web 2.0 facilitates sharing of information among users through social networks without control and verification, allowing users to upload content that may invade the privacy of others. Content such as sex videos, of

Last Name 11 celebrities as well as ordinary citizens, is largely available of the web. A major problem arises due to the fact that when any content / material is posted, it is extremely difficult to ascertain if the subject of the content has provided consent to the publication as well as the person who owns copyright in the content. Another major problem is to stop the spreading of this content through other ways of distribution such as peer-to-peer networks or email. An area of significant concern is the availability of information on social network websites such as Facebook that allow users to create their personal profiles, share information and content, which is personally identifiable and can be used for harmful purposes such as identity theft, defamation, stalking or other intentions. 3. Defamation Web 2.0 has also eased the task of publishing defamatory information on networks, causing injury to a persons reputation by uploading content, blogging and through publishing content online. This can result in serious legal consequences for anyone wishing to write untrue information that may be injurious to the rights of individuals, or specific groups of people. 4. Pornography Another major concern involving sites allowing users to upload contents is pornography, especially children. The possibility of keeping an eye on what children can view on the internet has become an impossible task. Pre-Web 2.0, it was possible to control content available only through pornographic websites, however, through the facility allowing users to upload contents

Last Name 12 anywhere allows children easy access to such sites without any restrictions on time or place, as well as age or identity verification. With the availability of publicly accessible collaborative networks like YouPorn.com, this has become easier for under-aged children to have easy access to restricted information, exhibiting sexual, abusive and violent contents. 5. Harassment Social networking also enables users to engage into activities using anonymous identification to harass other individuals into disclosing their personal information, including credit card numbers, passwords and etc. Also, many users use their influence of internet usage to acquire access to information content considered to be highly sensitive and personal nature, by unlawful means to stalk these individuals to engage into precarious behaviors. There may be other undesirable content as well that may cause infringement of others rights, privacy and the useability of information, which may have legal, ethical and social implications.

TASK 3 Consequence Analysis

For the purpose of completing this task, I suggest to select the impacts of Web 2.0 technologies on a telecommunication company ABC Telecom (fictitious name used to protect the companys identity) that is established to enable its customers to communicate in an effective manner. I will try to identify impacts of Web 2.0 on ABC by using consequence analysis techniques outlined below:

Last Name 13 1. Trend Extrapolation Past information is used to create trends and project future events. The information in this context is collected over a specific time interval based on the assumption that future operations will follow the same trend. For the situation with ABC, we can use employee productivity to monitor their awareness of social networking and the use of these, with an overall projection of their future performance, based on observed performance trends in the past. 2. Brainstorming This technique allows users to sit in a setting where ideas are presented based on free-wheeling. The environment is set to be completely based on the generation of a maximum number of ideas rather than being judgemental about it regardless of their accuracy or fitness for a purpose. In this situation, a brainstorming session can be arranged between individuals of ABC Telecom to identify trends in which personally identifiable information is available on social networks, and the availability of such information to the employees of the organization. This can be more critical as this can harm the organization wanting to keep their confidential information to themselves rather than sharing it with all employees. Such sessions are also helpful in communicating the overall organizational objectives and to gain support. Since such sessions allow people to come up with a wide variety of ideas that can be wild, as well as extremely creative. This also allows people to identify with what the organization is doing and how the internet and communications technologies can be used to create a social network

Last Name 14 that is low cost, where employees can be empowered to create and brand the companys products as well as marketing campaigns. 3. Delphi Method of forecasting A systematic approach to forecast, this session involves a group of experts that gather to express their opinion about the operability and the possibility of an idea by answering a set of questions concerning an issue at hand. This is usually moderated by a coordinator who gathers information from all participants, presents all answers in an anonymous manner, reviewing each option as well as gathering assumptions for a specific answer in order to gain first hand input. This reduces answers as the session progresses and group congregate towards a more appropriate answer agreed by everyone. This method can easily be used with the ABC to identify reasons of negative reputation towards the company such as staff turnovers, individual and group level conflicts, negatively enforced behaviours, as well as trends and beliefs formed through the creation of social networks or publicly identifiable information of the companys employees. This poses a serious threat to the organization if it loses valuable workforce with extensive experiences. So we can invite experts related with workforces in other telecom companies to participate in a session like this to minimize the impact of staff turnovers. 4. Scenario forecasting Another useful method of consequence analysis is through setting up scenarios based on past information, to forecast visualizations in the future, under uncertain conditions in wake of the new Web 2.0 technologies being implemented by the company. This allows

Last Name 15 organizations to come up with disaster recovery / contingency plans or respective responses to face any difficulties which may arise in future as forecasted. We can use this method to develop future scenarios for ABC Telecom to foresee the issues related with identity thefts, leaking confidential information, or a case of false representation of the organization by the individuals through the use of Web 2.0 technology to reap financial benefits under the organizations name. In such case, a person can use an organizations confidential information available on its internal network similar to the marketing campaigns in progress and can involve individuals from other companies in discussion through discussing such information on publicly accessible portals or websites or other means such as e-mail, blogs, websites to sponsor, thereby all receiving funds will be directed to personal own account. This can create a bad impact of organizations good image.

Effect/Probability/Actions grid
Impacts Disloyalty Lack of of employees ownership and content control Probability High Medium Low

Misuse of Companys Confidential Information

Gain personal Affected benefits using Organizati organizations name onal Reputatio n

Last Name 16

Actions to prevent or minimize the impacts

Activities resulting in impact on the organization having a higher probability can be minimized through appropriate identification by effectively using the information provided above and carry out actions required to mitigate these risks: 1. Misuse of Organizations Confidential Information The organization can control the quantity of information available to employees through appropriate security management procedures and appropriate steps to ensure no confidential information is leaked outside the organization. The organization should also use significant means to regulate that no confidential information is discussed on the publicly available sources of the internet. In case if it becomes an utmost necessity for the organization to display this information to its employees, suppliers and other partners on the network, it should do so with extreme care and concern by ensuring commitment of non-disclosure of this information by all partners with which this information is being shared. 2. Disloyalty of employees The organization can regulate the activities of its staff and prevent them from sharing any information over the web by sharing the organizations vision and objectives that can be achieved through its employees. The organization can also engage its employees in various meetings aimed at encouraging staff to participate in setting up trends in attract people to support their good cause through social networking activities. Engaging employees in organizational decision making enforces behavior of positivism among employees and ensures high amount of organizational citizenship behavior among employees, creating the feelings of being valued by the organization. This would

Last Name 17 create a workforce where employees go an extra mile to ensure successful achievement of the organizations goals. 3. Gain personal benefits using organizations name The organization can develop strict policies and procedures with an effective code of conduct allowing the organization to take necessary legal actions in case of any such situations in an attempt to address these issues. The organization must use public media to convey the actual findings in such an event to prevent the company from earning a bad reputation among its competitors as well as its customers and employees. 4. Organizational Reputation The organization can clearly set the points where organizational reputations is of utmost importance and can ardently communicate this to its employees in order to prevent any conflict situations that may arise from incomplete / inappropriate communication between the organization and its employees. The organization can create policies and a supportive framework for its employees to prevent them from engaging in behaviors and activities that are distant from the organizations values and can lead towards an unhealthy communication, such as violence, sexual harassment and other information misuses.

Development & Planning The Initial Stages

We can notice from the challenges as well as the implications above that any organization implementing this new technology will have lots of challenges to deal with, especially in the initial stages of its development owing to higher expectations, a greater amount of resistance and increased chances of failure. Some of these challenges can be:

Last Name 18 1. Development of new technology requires a high amount of cost involved in setting up infrastructure. 2. High and low-level planning will be extensively required to initiate the development on this new technology. This planning is crucial, smaller in part of the development and implementation of this technology, and larger in part of its usage by the organization implementing it and the users enabled to use this technology. Planning and enforcement as to regulating information privacy, ownership, usage and fitness in situations is of utmost importance. 3. Development on this technology will require training of all resources working on its development as well as those of the users who will use the technology 4. A new technology will present with it unanticipated risks and dangers that may act as bottlenecks for the entire project. 5. A new technology may face initial resistance and challenges in wake of the possibility of its failure or non-suitability for the purpose. Users facilitated through this new face of technology may feel reluctant in sharing their personal and individually identifiable information over the web, visible to all the users connected on the network. 6. High security costs, so as to prevent unauthorized access and use of information being distributed over the network.

TASK 4 Ethical Issues Concerning the Implementation of Web 2.0 Applications by an Organization
Organizations opting for the development of social networking / collaboration applications have a lot to worry for, in wake of the development and implementation of such applications, since these can be used in a lot of forms using Web 2.0

Last Name 19 technologies. While these applications significantly enhance an organizations and in general, societys capabilities in receiving collaborations at a much larger scale than previously conceived, these simultaneously have some backdrops as well that at present may not be noticeable for the company, however, may become one, sooner or later, in wake of an increasing quest for information and individuals right to privacy and control of content published over the web. 1. Internal Company Facebook An organization can create a social networking interface like Facebook and rolling it out to its employees and clients. This could allow users to post a significant amount of their personal information, viewable by all users on their network. This can be very useful for organizations operating across continents, as employees can get acquainted in a more comforting manner, making the organization more integrated and informed. Using Web 2.0 in this manner can help employees a lot as this can be used to gather consensus from users on any decision important to the company as well as collect diverse reviews to develop strategies that are concentrated specifically towards the addressed issue, to a greater extent. However, implementation of such technology can also facilitate identity theft, disclosure (although unintentional) of confidential company-client information, as well as publication concerning business relationships a company might prefer keeping confidential as well as other legal concerns, defamation etc. 2. User Generated Content for Marketing & Advertising through Web 2.0 An organization may use Web 2.0 to provide capabilities to its consumers by sending invitations to generate advertisements and marketing collateral for the companys products, as well as cast in their votes on favoured proposed

Last Name 20 advertisements. This can help organizations to gauge consumers by making them heavily engaged in their brands by allowing them to create content for it. This can also act as a leading enabler for companies to receive widespread consumer feedback by allowing a large number to rate proposed advertisements. This may present legal and ethical concerns of their own, since by putting consumers in charge of the brand and related messages, creating issues of ownership of the various forms of contents in the provided campaigns. On the other hand, issue of the relative suitability of such information is also of major concern. With employees encouraged to participate in marketing campaigns and advertising, this may become difficult for an organization to ensure that the information it is sharing with its employees is confidential and not released to its competitors. Simultaneously, although such ideas gathered from employees are the property of the organization itself, policies, if not strictly enforced may lead to the employees changing loyalties with the company to work for its competitors and presenting them with the same ideas, resulting in largely ethical and legal consequences for both. 3. Using Virtual Worlds in the Marketing and Sale of Products Various companies, operating on bricks and mortar as well as other non-Web 2.0 are moving into a new domain, virtual worlds, in an attempt to reach alternative demographic segments, as well as further adding up to the products brand. In a virtual world, the possibility for third parties to market and sell knock-offs of your products remains, or to take other actions that may impact your brand or ability to conduct your transactions. An example is the facility of unrelated parties to disrupt the virtual setting where your business is

Last Name 21 being transacted. These disruptions can be achieved through disabling code that can impact the virtual location or its ability to conduct transactions. Legal consequences and remedies of such activities are not as easily determined when they occur in the virtual world. Companies should work with legal counsel familiar with the technologies and applicable laws before embarking on such ventures.

Conclusion
Web 2.0 has become increasingly important in recent days for consumers as well as for businesses which, through the use of an emerging Web 2.0 business model, incorporate technologies in its marketing and advertising programs, business development and employee retention practices. With some prudence regarding usage of Web 2.0 technologies in your business, and strategies addressing legal and ethical issues sooner rather than later, you can capture the benefits of using Web 2.0 technologies in your business and generate revenue from these business models. Web 2.0 provides an organization with a global span to allow integration of information from all its employees in a local fashion. This is highly beneficial for organizations requiring quick and easily available information from its employees, especially in situations such as opinion polls, discussion groups, forums, blogs etc. However, adoption of this technology revolution requires a greater amount of enforcement and regulations on part of both the providers and users of these collaborative networks. Web 2.0 presents risks in its implementation owing to the problem of information theft, ownership, defamation as well as conflicts resulting from online discussions that are not moderated. Also, this can result in personal information being accessible to all

Last Name 22 members on the network, posing a serious problem in term of harassment, resulting in legal and ethical consequences, in lieu of information disclosure. There is however, not only a negative side to the use of Web 2.0. It allows organizations to empower them in decision making, engaging them in decisions, increasing organizational loyalty and citizenship behavior. Secondly, due to its nature of being more of a revolutionary framework using the basic features of the web in a fast and innovative manner rather than being dependent on a specific technology framework, enabling it to do so, in lesser costs in research and development.

Works Cited
Aguiton, Christophe & Cardon, Dominique. The Strength of Weak Cooperation: an Attempt to Understand the Meaning of Web 2.0. Research. 2008. Aronson, Daniel. Systems Thinking. 1999. Systems Thinking. 18 April 2009 <http://www.thinking.net/Systems_Thinking/systems_thinking.html>. Barbry, Eric. Web 2.0: Nothing Changes...but Everything is Different. Research. Paris, 2008. George, Dr. Carlisle & Scerri, Dr. Jackie. Web 2.0 and User-Generated Content: legal challenges in the new frontier. Journal of Information, Law and Technology (2007). O' Reilly, Tim. What is Web 2.0? Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0. 2005.