Web2.0 and development studies

February 4, 2008

In my last post I argued that the collaborative web has its implications for development aid. And yesterday I read an interesting article by Mark Thompson from the University of Cambridge titled “ICT and development studies: towards development2.0.” The article is an attempt to highlight the potentials of the web for development, its push for openness and collaboration will effect development aid and at the end this can fit in an theoretical framework of development studies. Most interesting to me is his argument about how the “philosophy”, “approach” or “pressure” - or however you want to call it - behind web2.0 goes way beyond using ICT more efficiently in development work: It does influence and ultimately will push forward a different approach to development.

The key insight here is that in its emerging Web 2.0 form, ICT can no longer be conceived as assemblages of hardware, software, and user behaviour. Viewed instead as an ‘architecture of participation’, ICT becomes an opportunity for generating, mediating and moderating a particular paradigm of social life; and this paradigm poses a direct challenge to much of the way in which ‘development’, with its associated visions for social life and supporting infrastructure, has been conceptualised and delivered to date. As public goods and services, developmental initiatives are arguably subject to modern, ICT-driven critiques about the need for public service reform such as Leadbeater and Cottam’s The User Generated State: Public Services 2.0 (2007), which calls for a shift from the focus on ‘delivery’ during the last ten years (also seen in the developmental discourse) to a focus on ‘co-creation’.

My contention is therefore that the increasing ubiquity of ICT within development has implications that extend even beyond its role as mediator of economic, social, and political opportunity. Conceived as ‘Web 2.0’, a paradigm for technology-enabled social life comprising diversity, collaboration, and multiple truths, ICT now poses a direct challenge to development studies itself, demanding attention to ways in which, in the future, Web 2.0 models may drive increasing calls for a much more plural and collaborative Development 2.0. The next section

The whole article can be downloaded here.

7 concerns about the web in 2008

January 21, 2008

Frequent readers know I am quite enthusiastic about the social web, its potentials and cultural impact. Especially when it comes to knowledge sharing and information and communication technologies for development. However, I also have concerns and see obstacles about the participative web — its development and its divide. So as a start of 2008, I will try not to add predictions, instead some challenges.

1. Exclusion
Connectivity is not only about access but also being able to use the web with all its potentials. To express oneself with social media and to engage in social networks. The social web has a philosophy of openness and sharing, but social networks often have typical exclusive patterns. Getting the right information through feeds does not make you more inclusive. The nowadays web is more participative than ever before, but still strives along lines of exclusion. Exclusion is around having instant access, and being from the western hemisphere, having a better education and getting more attention. The front-runners are far ahead of normal internet users. My concern is that “those already rich in knowledge, information and connections may just get richer” (Charles Leadbeater).

2. Complexity
The social web opens the door for participation, but simultaneously it widens the gap between insiders and outsiders. Although the web is getting easier — just 3 clicks to a blog — the barrier for entry is still high. Not everybody is as well connected, experienced and qualified to deal with all these tools and opportunities. To understand blogs, wikis, feeds and social bookmarking takes time. I taught a relative of mine the other day the first steps on how to use the Internet and realized once again how complex the web has got. There are so many tools but so little explanation. The plain in English videos are a rarity.

3. Orientation
As great as folksonomies are and as smart as the wisdom of crowd is, it still does not give us sufficient orientation in the world wide web. The delicious startpage will make you think the web is about programmers, but what does it tell an internet newbie? To find relevant information can still be a difficult task or even within the social web takes time and resources. Social bookmarking and blogs are amazing sources of information, however, you have to find them or have the know-how to grasp their potential. Web2.0 got much more user-friendly, but a lot more has to be done to explain the opportunity for everybody. For some people, web2.0 made the web even more complex because the voices of many do not necessarily give orientation.

4. Many voices
The number of blogs is growing every day and social networks attract many new members, but there is hardly any two-way-conversation on most blogs. Millions of blogs do not have comments, thousands of facebook groups have soon after they started lost their life. The many voices often do not get as many responses. Especially when the web is used to promote social change, it is questionable to which extent this can be done over the web. Often, great stories in blogs are not read because nobody links to them. The social web has its own competition over attention and this easily will forget Kenya, Let’s Talk Scoble-gate!

5. Speed
The speed of development is breathtaking and hardly to follow. Only a minority keep up the pace. A bit more than ten years ago the only digital presence I had was on an answering machine. Nowadays new gadgets, tools and opportunities fly up daily and there is hardly any time to try the older ones, because they are bypassed by “better” solutions. That is the case of most blog posts which receive no attention after a few days. It is hardly possible to follow the speed of innovation and question whether this is necessary. Alone wikis and blogs bear a great potential and have started to be used in different contexts.

6. Information overload
From my work, I look on web2.0 from a knowledge management perspective. Blogs and wikis are surely no miracle because they simply cannot supply a real good face to face meeting and a creative brainstorming in a group. As a recent study tells that 2008 is the year of the information overload. Emails are seen as a key obstacle, but implementing blogs and wikis can also lead to the similar result. First comes the need and then maybe a web solution, but only one really fits best what is already there. Web2.0 tools can become a time waster and too little is asked about the benefit of them. Or as Bev Trayner wrote in her post, maybe less is better when it comes to online tools.

7. Filter
I am amazed about the information power gain through feeds and getting more and more decent quality information out of the web. But it is still not easy to filter, or it takes a lot of time to get qualitative information. It is still difficult to find relevance in the social web, so I can click through a world of wisdom. Language is a key challenge and also the dominance of the masses like in the old media.

Changes in work life: Employee2.0

December 10, 2007

Leila Summa has given a great presentation called “Wanted: Employee2.0 - when technologies wait for their users.” She presented it in German but here I have translate some parts. (Complete presentation). It underlines again how fast this new forms of communication and opportunities evolve, how much faster organizations need to react, and how profound the culture impact will be sooner or later.

I found especially these two slides intriguing because they describe the future development in work life, the visions of many enthusiastic people about cultural changes of the new web, and the personal effect on the employee. The first slide accurately describes the old way of work life for employee1.0. Translation starting from the top center then clockwise:

(1) material values, (2) life-time position, (3) security, (4) stability & continuity, (5) personal contacts with a friend, (6) employee as a cost factor, (7) top-down - one way communication, (8) internal communications, (9) belief in hierarchy, (10) days/hours, (11) values of liability and acceptance.

Mitarbeiter1.0

The second slide describes wonderfully how the present work life 2.0 hits the employee. Translation clockwise: (1) immaterial values, (2) manager for time/freelancing, insecurity, (3) flexibility & change, social contacts with many friends, (4) employee as a knowledge source, (5) bottom down - two way communication, (6) internal relations, (7) social network, (8) minutes/seconds, (9) values of self fulfillment.

Mitarbeiter2.0

These slides show the changes of work life and to which large extent this will be shaped by the web. It certainly shows some downsides as instant communications. Not without surprise I see more in newspapers articles with titles such as “in the future anonymity is a luxury” or “the happiness of being unattainable.” What I miss on the slides is the culture of openness, sharing and the free flow of ideas in the participatory web.

(via PR Blogger)

Web2.0, knowledge sharing and IT departments

October 17, 2007

Here in Germany, Web2.0 is in everybody’s mouth. Newspapers have been reporting about it lately, and some things are around the buzz word–blogs, wikis, social networks, wikipedia, facebook or youtube, get more and more attention. Whereas in the first wave most people wondered where and when will the next cool start-up spring up. The debate went on whether blogs are a threat to media or not. The wikipedia phenomenon brought finally the knowledge and collaboration dimension of web2.0 to the spotlight.

Ironically, in my opinion, the IT departments–responsible still–have often not taken the participative web as a top priority. And I wonder whether this is different elsewhere. By the way, a similar phenomenon is seen in the knowledge management arena. In relevant magazines, web2.0 and its potential for knowledge sharing and learning has hit the headlines this Summer. However, not many blogs are even around (Please notify me if you know some). One exception is Martin Röll, who wrote very early, albeit he stopped his blog, about knowledge sharing through blogs. Three other nice blogs are zungu.net, frogpond.de and Wissensmanagement2.0.

Going back to the topic, I wonder why many IT-specialists do not show a wider interest in web2.0 and share some enthusiasm. Here are some assumptions:

  • IT-experts know by own experience that web2.0 is just another approach, and doubt the hype around it.
  • IT-experts are bored of the triviality of this kind of software such as blogs and wikis.
  • IT-departments completely underestimate the effects for web2.0 software.
  • Web2.0 is seen secondary as technological and it is much more about culture, communication and commitment (3C)

“Like it or not, Web 2.0 is coming,” says Lisa Hoover in the context of enterprise2.0, and this different tools will be used in organizations. Euan agrees by stating: The 100% guaranteed easiest way to do Enterprise 2.0? DO NOTHING. It strikes me to see how many people individually already use web2.0 tools such as blogs or wikis, or they arrange meetings with doodle, use their own desktop sharing and collaborate over google docs. And this all goes easily around the firewall because it is all browser-based. Nevertheless, some obstacles remain as Bev Trayner describes in her blog post Web2.0 is a long way from people at work.

I think it is important to grasp the potential of collaboration and to prove it can be a reduction of information overload and leverage new forms of collaboration. However, from a knowledge management perspective, it is also critical because of how can we share information, when it is distributed over the web. How can it be linked and searched from the intranet? Nevertheless, I am still puzzled about the reluctance towards web2.0 even though it can become a decisive and comparative advantage, being it internally for communication or externally to flourish cooperation.

An overview of blogging for development

September 19, 2007

Background
As some of you might already know I work for GTZ (German Technical Cooperation), and I am of course very interested in the potential of the web towards development aid and international cooperation. Surprisingly–and correct me if I am wrong!–but to me, it seems there are not many blogs out their in this field yet. There are of course a lot of portals –and two of the big ones are the development gateway or eldis.org. However, in my opinion, the development sector has yet not grasped the potential of web2.0. I already argued in a post that the result is that this shift, so far, is challenging traditional development agencies.

What is there in the world wide web?
One interesting website is aid worker network, which contains personal blogs from all around the world. There are also individual blogs that describe in an authentic and provoking way how it is to work in this field. Check out these examples from Afghanistan and Sudan.
The science world is also blogging, and such is the case of Oversea Development Institute or professors such as Dan Rodrik for international political economy, or John Daly for knowledge for development. But once again, I am surprised that for such an international topic, blogs are not used in a wider scale. For example, why aren’t there any more professors having blogs? And why so few development organizations offer blogs? Some organisations in this field have started experimenting with it (Worldbank) or using it as a first step internally (GTZ, UN etc.).

screenshotBlogs for storytelling
As blogs can have different purposes and styles of expression, in the humanitarian relief field, they seem to be quite successfully used. The Guardian issued an interesting article (not online available) a few weeks ago, which highlights the potential for blogs and how organisations such as Oxfam or the International Rescue Comittee (IRC) use them as an strategic communication tool. Other examples are “Voices from the field“, representing the work from IRC and impressions from all around the world; and Ian Bray from Oxfam blogging for BBC about the recent flood in India.

In old times, it took weeks to get information form disasters into the global media and “now we can get blogs or photos up in just hours, which are able to get voices of ordinary people heard by a potential audiences of millions and can really press home the desperation and emergency situation happening on the ground.” So, in a way donors can read from the beneficiaries about what has happened to their money. The article continues, especially the Tsunami “revolutionised the aid world’s use of digital media”, being it the above described as different communication or the direct funding over the web. Blogging itself opens new fast ways of coverage, but even more importantly, an individual perspective from persons concerned.

The difference technology made
The economist argues in a recent article, “technology is transforming humanitarian relief—and shifting the balance of power between donors and recipients.” The article describes how Internet and mobile phones offer new instruments to coordinate more efficiently disaster relief. Relief Web is a portal to coordinate these efforts. It describes also that communication is not a one way street, through more cheaply available technology such as mobile phones, also small NGOs or even individuals can engage. So, “technology completely alters the way humanitarian work is done.” “In the humanitarian operation of the future,” says Save the Children’s Mr Porter, “beneficiaries of emergency aid will use technology to tell us what they need—cash, food, or education—find out from us what to expect, and track its arrival, just as we can track an order from Amazon.com now.”

Search your own information web

September 16, 2007

I just stumbled over deliGoo, a great new search mashup. It combines del.icio.us and Google’s custom search. That means, it can search for a keyword through all the websites of the 2829 bookmarks in my del.icio.us account. This gives me amazingly relevant results because my del.icio.us bookmarks represent my own web of topics–those I am interested on.

information_web.jpg

You have to install deliGoo in your Firefox browser. When you run it the first time, it takes some time to include all your bookmarked websites into Google’s custom search. But then, once it is done, you can search through all these websites by typing any keyword. Now I am even happier of having invested so much time bookmarking so many websites that are part of my personal knowledge management. Here is my deliGoo search (Sorry works only with the firefox plugin.)

One can also search single tags in del.icio.us too. For example the NPK4DEV (nonprofit knowledge management for development) tag, which is collaboratively used by various people, offers great websites. That way you can search in websites chosen by people for being interesting and valuable. Not surprising, the results are far better. To me, it is another step proving that web2.0, with such tools, makes the web more useful and handy to anyone.

Few steps to a powerful social software application

September 8, 2007

I have been dealing with different kinds of content management systems for some years now. What I find fascinating lately it is how applications became powerful and how easy they are to handle by non-experts. Through these applications, creating social media and networking is possible for everybody. Wikis and blogs can be set up in minutes through different web services. But also social network software such as Drupal, advanced content management systems such as Joomla, and of course, blog software such as Wordpress, can be easily installed with little effort. For less then 10 bucks and with little web knowledge, powerful applications are around the corner.

  1. Pick a hosting package which offers these free and open source software and includes one click installation for applications.
  2. Most of these providers offer you a web based administration interface, where you can choose from many different software. With a few clicks a software is installed.
  3. The application can be controlled through another web based interface and can be manually configured to different needs. For example, Wordpress can be combined with blog posts and static pages to have a blog and a normal homepage.
  4. Hundreds of free websites’ templates are offered for all sorts of different taste. In Joomla, it can be easily uploaded on the website itself and you can jump between different designs.
  5. Hundreds of different modules or plug-ins allow you to extend your website in all directions. These modules are mostly for free and only need to be uploaded via ftp and activated in the web based configuration.

Of course these steps are a bit simplified, and to have a successful website running, still expertise is needed. However, with already included multiple language packages, these free and open source applications set the path for great networks to social change everywhere. Rightly done, these websites surely can compete with big portals in terms of their features and social networking features. Some applications offer even other distinct services such as BuzzMonitor and Pligg:

BuzzMonitor is “an open source application that “listens” to what people are saying about the World Bank across blogs and other sites in order to help the organization understand and engage in social media.” It is developed by Development Seed, who are also making a presentation at the web2fordev conference and Pierre Wielezynski from the World Bank. It is a monitoring that includes all kinds of feeds and allows them to be rated by the members. This is excellent for a community or organisation to get a picture of certain topics. It can be tested here: buzzm.worldbank.org/tour

NGO POSTA truly amazing application is Pligg, which is a Digg like software. It is a good approach for bringing people together to share and rate news from the web. It is, for example, used for social development here: ngopost.org. With this tool a community share and discuss what is happening in the info-sphere of the web. I would really like to use that application, however, I imagine it is not easy to involve others to join, when everybody is already involved in so many on-line networks. Does somebody have an idea?

In conclusion, I think the development of free and open source social software is decisive to engage for social change and development through web2.0. It will allow to spread the social media thrive in all areas. It is the openness of this application that let us communicate, sharing and creating social media in new ways.

10 arguments for web2.0 in an organization

September 3, 2007

It is not always easy to argue in favour of web2.0 tools when you are faced with these arguments:

  • More information? My mailbox already drives me nuts!
  • The content written by some people is often so irrelevant and just for entertainment.
  • I spent already so much time online and now I shall even invest more time on these social networks, wikis etc.
  • I can find my stuff in google. Why shall I tag, blog or share bookmarks?
  • Didn’t we try this online interaction before and it failed? Look at forums and why they never worked.
  • IT solutions often fail. Look at all these outdated databases where you cannot find what you need.

Lida Rose at flickrI already wrote some posts about communication and knowledge sharing through web2.0 in an organization. To me, it seems worthwhile to experiment with it, especially because it empowers each member of an organization. But being convinced and enthusiastic is not enough to help people overcome their skepticism about just another set of IT tools.
So I tried to summarize ten arguments, which help me often persuade colleagues and friends to give web2.0 a try.

  1. Overview: Look at folder structure on your computer. Did it work to store your documents in the right folder and to find them quickly later on? How are the search results of your intranet? Imagine you could criss-cross through tag clouds of topics from your organization, with a few clicks you would find your niche topic. It is not magic. Social bookmarking tools, such as delicious, show it works. It does not use folders. Instead it relies on tags.
  2. Transparency: In emails and classical Intranet, dominated environment information is in-transparent. It goes vertical or horizontal and hides all the valuable information–interesting for others–in mailboxes of individuals.
  3. Relevance: Emails reach you whether you want them or not, and a lot of their content has no relevance to your work. With RSS feeds, you subscribe to what is relevant to your work or what deals about your topic. With your blog, you gather your own community of interest around you and share practice.
  4. Connectedness: Imagine address books or yellow pages would not be the only source to find competence. You could surf different wikis, blogs and bookmark pages, and see behind every page your colleagues discussions or people with similar links. All these conversations make you aware of who are the colleagues sharing your interest or problem.
  5. Openness: Using the read/write web in organizations means that you can interact at any point –being it in a wiki project page or a colleague’s blog post– and help to link the right people and the right topics together. For example, a profile page with a tag cloud of posts and links shows each person’s interests in detail.
  6. Enrichment: Do you struggle over formal documents written in a boring way, leaving out the experiences and opinions. To codify tacit knowledge is a difficult task anyway. Blogs can become storytelling tools amplifying hundreds of learning experiences from daily practice of teams and colleagues.
  7. Easiness: The best part of most of the web2.0 tools is their easy handling. These tools are consequently made for people and have been many times tested to make them better. The beta mode of many applications shows their openness to approach improvement. In contrast, to complicated content management systems, wikis and blogs do not require training.
  8. Technology: A great thing about many web2.0 tools is their often easy technology. You do not have to ask for every second step to the IT department. It is not a sophisticated database with a complicated interface that fails in giving you the right information. Web2.0 means that staff can create and mix tools and media themselves. Blogs can be set up in minutes, interdependencies are created through links and not failing search robots.
  9. Network: Did you ever struggle while navigating through a website? No surprise because it shows only a one dimensional perspective on the organizational knowledge. When colleagues frequently bookmark what interest them in an organizational web and share this with others, then, they weave their own web. This, not only links the real knowledge domains important for an organization; it also creates a social network.
  10. Contribution: Such a web relies on the contribution of its members. It, therefore, highlights and re-numerates the most active contributors, who are willing to share knowledge and like to connect people to learn from each other.

And last but not least, web2.0 has of course obstacles because interaction often remains online. But how great can it work when you find an interesting blog post from a colleague and then ask him to have lunch next week.

Weekly links: About Twitter and the future of the social web

August 27, 2007
  • Who owns web2.0?
    Amy Webb made an interesting listing on the latest acquisition of media and web companies. A rather spooky video shows the outcome of too much media concentration: Prometeus - The Media Revolution
  • Thinking about Twitter
    Nancy White wrote two excellent posts about the use of Twitter to share knowledge and its different effects on communication, networking and learning (First post / Second post).
    I wrote a rather critical article about it, but I will give Twitter a try now.
  • Collaborative and collective intelligence
    An interesting post that describes the differences between wisdom of crowds and collaborative work. Wisdom of crowds, where the collective is used to generate average data such as a tag cloud or to get the most interesting articles. Collaborative work is different in which people write together, for example, wikipedia entries or a book.
  • Did you know2.0?
    A very nice video that points some of the changes of our knowledge society and the effects of the social web for the future. A quote from the video: “The amount of technical information is doubling every two years. By 2010 it is predicted to double every 72 hours.” Karl Fisch did the video and invites for further discussions.

Feed Mashups: RSS 1 + RSS 2 = RSS unlimited

August 20, 2007

Dana Gardner’s article “RSS feeds begin to bleed into enterprise applications” talks about mashups of RSS feeds or “feed bleeds,” how he calls them. Although his article is quite technological, it still has interesting insights and goes in the same direction as my recent post about the hidden potential of RSS feeds.

What’s newly powerful is that nearly any kind of content can be driven through these feeds — from documents, spreadsheets, and data to video, blogs, podcasts and online HTML instruction manuals.

In another point, he argues that feed mashups can be easily remixed or fine-tuned, or they can be combined to powerful mashups with all kinds of different sources such as location, language, etc. Basically, as in the old way, you will not have a database that is accessed through a search engine. Now, instead, you will have various sources of information from inside and outside an organization, which you can combine as needed. The potential mashups are unlimited.

First example:
I want to have new information on my field of interest also in other languages. I would take the feed from certain news (e.g. intranet, blog) and deliver it to a translation service. With automatic feed, certain selected websites are monitored. Then, if a key word corresponds, the respective source would be delivered in my feed reader.

Second example:
I assume comments of blogs always have valuable information. So I combine different comment feeds from my colleagues’ blogs I find interesting. With that RSS feed I include a search of a database to add projects and documents of the commenters to my feed.

Is this going to happen? Gardner finishes, “As Web 2.0 empowers younger workers to manage content online in new ways, they will want to use similar approaches on the job. Should this be done via an end-run around IT?”

Does Twitter make sense?

August 19, 2007

To begin with, I have to say, I am not a Twitter user. I have signed up for an account but have not used it at all. I, personally, prefer tools such as Skype. But still, I am willing to be convinced that it does bring an advantage for personal use. I imagine it can be very useful, though, so far, it seems to me another ‘great time consuming application.’ I wonder whether it is really an advantage to be hyperconnected. “Like any good pusher, services like Twitter don’t answer existing needs; they create new ones and then fill them. (Times)” I sense it speeds up the anyway fast communication and information sharing through the web. However, I also imagine it can be an application for new senseful forms of communication, activism and networking, especially with its connection to the mobile phone.
Given that assumption, I collected the following links about twitter:

These articles show how Twitter can be used in all sorts of ways, such as to allow fast messaging and alert a network. It seems good to give notice and to feel connected. It can be an important tool for activism because it pings every member of a network and it is more personal and directed than blogs. I imagine also twittervision version for human rights worldwide or environmental violations in a region.

E-democracy: participation next? (2) Germany

August 13, 2007

Overview
First of all, I would like to thank Jan Amos and and Rolf Lührs for their comments. Yes, I agree that in Germany some initiatives around e-democracy have been taken (e.g. e-petition in the German parliament), however, in comparison to German’s vibrant political life, its web is politically inactive. In that regard, politik-digital.de is a lighthouse for many years and a think tank that discusses and analyzes politics and the net. The European counterpart, Europa-digital.de, has done a lot for independent coverage. Their latest initiative, e-participation.net, is great but it also shows how only so little has arisen. Another website is abgeordnetenwatch.de, where citizens can address politicians directly, leading to direct pressure, as Jan nicely pointed out. It is this kind of approach which opens a two-way-conversation.

Politik2.0 and campaigns
However, taking a look at the German political activism in the web or initiatives for e-democracy you get the impression that web2.0 has not arrived in Germany. For example, if you look at the blogosphere, you will hardly see any political blog and rarely grassroot activism. This was also regretted on a discussion called “Politik2.0” last Spring on the ‘Re-Publica‘ conference. Only few blogs are different, such is the case of netzpolitik.org, which works as a watchdog dealing with all sorts of topics around the Internet and liberty rights. Right now they are part of a campaign against the Minister of Interior’s latest idea of Stoppt die Vorratsdatenspeicherung“Vorratsdatenspeicherung“. The current government initiated a law that will allow the saving of all personal web traffic including email, etc. for half a year. The minister of interior also elaborates the wrong idea to allow private investigation through hacking software. Another interesting recent campaign was the one of flickr and censorship in Germany.

Some challenges
The challenges that keep e-democracy from moving much further in Germany are multifold. Markus Beckedahl said on the Politik2.0 discussion, that the political arena has still not yet embraced or even understood the web. Best prove is a an interview on German television given by kids, who asked Germans such as the Minister of Justice about different browsers. She replied: “Browsers? What are browsers again?” Another problem is surely the missing transparency of the German political system in some regards. For example, information about politician salaries have been made public just recently. But shouldn’t that missing transparency make the web more political?
Most surprising is the fact that civil society has not embraced the recent web developments and has not even started to use web2.0 potential.

Web2.0 and politics
But what strikes me the most is that web2.0 is purely seen as a business topic. It surely is a buzz word, but it does offer a new form of participation. For example, on bar camps blogger, politics and activism play no role. In the realm of web2.0, German blogger focus mainly on start-ups. The great potential for participation, being it political or for knowledge sharing and social change, is not been seen here in Germany in the wide blogosphere. The best example of this development is trupoli.com, a new political web2.0 platform which offers “true politics” that can be experienced free from media show. What really occurs to me is that trupoli.de is a corporation! Will participation and political discourse be now a part of demand and supply? I am looking forward to see a maplight.org application analyzing trupoli in the future.

Nevertheless, I am optimistic, especially right now, that an unconference about e-democracy takes place in Berlin. I am eager to hear about the outcome.


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