Web 2.0 as a Foundation for Social Media Marketing

In the Web 1.0 era, users were passive consumers of a read-only Web. However, the emergence of Web 2.0 redefined the way people use information and communication services—users evolved into prosumers that actively participate and collaborate in the ecosystem of a read-write Web. Consequently, marketing is one among many areas affected by the advent of the Web 2.0 paradigm. Web 2.0 enabled the global proliferation of social networking, which is the foundation for Social Media Marketing. Social Media Marketing represents a novel Internet marketing paradigm based on spreading brand-related messages directly from one user to another. This is also the reason why Social Media Marketing is often referred to as the viral marketing. This chapter will describe: (1) how social networking became the most popular Web 2.0 service, and (2) how social networking revolutionized Internet marketing. Both issues will be elaborated on two levels—the global and the Croatian level. The chapter will first present the evolution of social networking phenomenon which has fundamentally changed the way Internet users utilize Web services. During the first decade of 21st century, millions of people joined online communities and started using online social platforms, about 1.5 billion members of social networks globally in 2012. Furthermore, the chapter will describe how Internet marketing provided marketers with innovative marketing channels, which offer marketing campaign personalization, low-cost global access to consumers, and simple, cheap, and real-time marketing campaign tracking. Specifically, the chapter will focus on Social Media Marketing, the latest step in the Internet marketing evolution. The three most popular Social Media Marketing platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare) will be described, and examples of successful marketing case studies in Croatia will be presented.

Users’ Involvement in the Innovation Process through Web 2.0

Organizations are inserted into a competitive environment in which innovation is an essential factor in gaining temporary competitive advantages. The search for external sources of knowledge, which can contribute to the innovation process, has become a constant among the organizations. One of the actors involved in this search is users, who often play an important role in the development of new products. This chapter develops a framework for the analysis of users’ involvement in the innovation process through Web 2.0. The research method used a unique case study conducted in a Brazilian automotive company that developed a project of a concept car involving users through Web 2.0. The presented study case was analyzed according to the framework. The obtained result shows that users can contribute not only with idea generation, but also with involvement in the innovation process, depending on which steps of the New Product Development (NPD) process they take part in. Moreover, increasingly users’ development, participation, and collaboration are essential factors in this process.

Toward Web 2.0 Integration in Indonesian Education

Numerous efforts have been made to reform education to address globalization both in developed and developing countries. The integration of technology in education has been one vital reform effort in developing countries to prepare graduates for 21st century workplaces, which are digitally robust. Web 2.0 technologies are becoming prominent educational and workplace tools. This literature review of Indonesian government policies, NGO initiative reports, and contemporary research explores the integration of Web 2.0 in Indonesian education using an ecological perspective by introducing the Indonesian national educational policy and laws, describing national and non-government organizations’ initiatives focused on Web 2.0 integration, identifying salient national and local challenges preventing Web 2.0 integration, and proposing strategies for future planning and research. Challenges identified include lack of technological facilities, an absence of technology standards in education, a standardized testing culture, lack of coordination between government levels (national to local), lack of professional development, and a need for strong school technology leadership. The authors recommend Indonesia engage in comprehensive, visionary planning for Web 2.0 integration with strategies to meet local needs, invest in professional development and technology specialist positions, and advance mobile Web 2.0 computing and BYOT/D initiatives. Future research could examine how ecological factors at the national, provincial, and local levels coordinate to best establish Web 2.0 integration in education at the school level.

The Conceptualization of a Research Model for the Measurement of e-Government 2.0 Readiness in the Developing Countries

This chapter explores the potential of Web 2.0 utilization in developing countries through the concept of e-government. Successful implementation of the Web 2.0 concept has to combine both technological and human factors. Thus, this chapter proposes a conceptual model that will measure e-government 2.0 readiness. The conceptual model is based on a combination of the Technology Acceptance Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, and indexes from the United Nation’s database. South Sudan is used at the end as a brief case study of the potential of e-Government 2.0. Future research should validate the empirical model. Meanwhile, the implications of the model are presented.

Technological Support for Online Communities Focusing on Music Creation

People have always found music significant in their lives, whether for enjoyment in listening, performing, or creating. However, music making in modern life tends to be restricted to the domain of the professional artists, instrumentalists, and singers. Since the advent of Web 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications, the authors’ research group has been investigating the use of Web-based technology to support novice-oriented computer-based musical activities. The main motivation of their work is the belief that no previous musical knowledge should be required for participating in creative musical activities. Consequently, any ordinary user—non-musician or novice—may enhance his creativity through engagement, entertainment, and self-expression. The goal of this chapter is to propose several concepts that emerged during their research concerning novice-oriented cooperative music creation and musical knowledge sharing (a sophisticated activity distinct from the common and well-known music sharing for listening). The authors also discuss key characteristics of Brazilian culture and the creativity styles that inspired their work. They illustrate their perspective by showing how concepts implemented and derived from cases investigated in Brazil represent a comprehensive context for embracing cooperation, flexibility, cross-cultural diversity and creativity. The resulting communityware has music as its intrinsic motivation.

The Use of Web 2.0 Technologies by Students from Developed and Developing Countries

Web 2.0 technologies have not had the impact many perceived they would in many higher learning institutions in both developing and developed countries. Its potentiality has hardly been realised. Great strides have been made in designing and using Web 2.0 technologies to help students learn in the cognitive (mental), behavioural (psychomotor), and affective (feeling) domains. The major challenge is the application of Web 2.0 technologies to the conative (will) domain, which relates to an individual’s intrinsic motivation to achieve goals. Students’ participation in the Web 2.0 learning environment is influenced by their cultural background, language proficiency, communication style, socio-economic and technological circumstances, learning styles, and prior knowledge. This chapter explores the participation from various groups of students from developed and developing countries. These students are located in learning environments within a tertiary institute, which are facilitated by Web 2.0 technologies. It observes that the students’ learning and successful participation in the Web 2.0 environment largely depends on the state of student’s conative domain and the interface between their cultural background and learning preference.

Computing Postgraduate Programmes in the UK and Brazil

Education can benefit from experiences and collaborations across different countries and cultures. The authors carried out a study to analyse the experiences of the use of Web 2.0 tools in distance education in the UK and propose a set of lessons that can be applied in the Brazilian context. The recent economic growth in Brazil has resulted in a strong demand for further education. Distance education has emerged as a strong contestant to address this demand. The authors present, in this chapter, the case of the provision of postgraduate education for professionals at a distance. Distance education in Brazil is currently gathering support as it offers great potential to address the big geographic and social divides. However, there are many barriers and misconceptions that perpetuate a climate of distrust. Their study draws a set of lessons learned focusing on the benefits that distance education can bring to the development of professional postgraduate education in technical and engineering areas, in the light of the experience of The Open University (OU) in the UK. They emphasise the support that Web 2.0 can bring to these experiences, but also draw attention to the quality that the production process plays in the learning experiences. These lessons address the following: support for skills development with Web 2.0 technologies, the role of the digital educator, open educational resources, open education and social dimension, and quality and pedagogy in the educational process.

The Role of Web 2.0 in the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring seemed to give a renewed sense of promise to proponents of Web 2.0 as a force for democratization. However, a year on, throughout the Arab world the prospects for democracy are still far from certain. Our conclusion, based on an examination of the events in four countries—Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, and Libya—is that Web 2.0 collaborative tools are without parallel in their ability to mobilize vast numbers of the public. Unknown, however, is whether Web 2.0 can also assist in institutionalizing democracy throughout the Arab world. In this study, the authors adapt the path dependency model of Douglass North and others to explain why, despite the huge popularity of Web 2.0 in the region, the growth of Arab e-democracy will be slow and uncertain. Path dependency suggests that in order for e-democracy to eventually take root and thrive in the region, certain preconditions must be met.

Virtual Collaborative Learning

New technologies are used increasingly to enhance people’s lives in many fields, and education is a very important sector that can benefit from technological development. The idea of using technology to facilitate and enhance learning, known as electronic learning, has led to the development of a wide range of applications and implementations worldwide. Electronic learning can offer new opportunities for developing countries by increasing access to education and improving learning outcomes. This chapter presents Virtual Collaborative Learning (VCL) as a modern technology-enhanced team-learning arrangement based on a constructivist learning paradigm. By utilizing Web 2.0 tools to empower and enhance classical e-Learning methods, VCL reaches far beyond classical Web-Based Training. Opportunities and challenges of VCL for developing countries will be discussed based on a long European teaching and research experience.

Web 2.0 and Opportunities for Entrepreneurs

The increasing value of Web 2.0 applications and their effects on consumers and organizations are frequently attracting academic and professional communities. A new set of new technologies, called Web 2.0, offers new opportunities, and blurs the boundaries between online and offline activities, opening a new era characterized by: openness, collaboration, and participation. It presents a new affordable channel for entrepreneurs in different sectors to market and build communities, and to receive a direct feedback about their products and services. Even though entrepreneurship in general and their use of Web 2.0 in particular are relatively new concepts especially in developing countries, entrepreneurship has gained a special interest in Egypt due to the success realized by some youth entrepreneurs who consider the Internet and different Web 2.0 applications as an integral aspect in their daily lives. Hence, the present chapter investigates opportunities for small businesses in the Web 2.0 era. In-depth semi-structured interviews were arranged with a number of Egyptian entrepreneurs who started their business. The research conducted revealed that Web 2.0 adoption by Egyptian entrepreneurs is affected by three main factors: age of entrepreneur, date of establishment of the company, and nature of the business: traditional or virtual. It was concluded also that Egyptian entrepreneurs are still at an early stage in using Web 2.0 since a large number of the sample used in this research are still reluctant to consider incorporating this technology in their working practice. For those already embracing Web 2.0, they limit such use on social media only without considering other applications (such as podcasts, really simple syndication, blogs, wikis, etc.), and they do not have clear objectives and strategies that govern such use. Findings of this study can provide helpful guidelines for small businesses to begin using and leveraging Web 2.0. This chapter provides a valuable contribution to the field of entrepreneurship and electronic business research. Specifically, the chapter highlights the applicability of Web 2.0 in entrepreneurial activities in developing countries: an area of research yet unexplored.