The Web Goes Social

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Aided by faster microprocessors, high-speed broadband networks, and a proliferation of digital content, the Internet has become more than just an information source in its second decade as a mass medium. The second generation of the Internet is a much more robust and social environment, having moved toward being a fully interactive medium with user-created content like blogs, Tumblrs, YouTube videos, Flickr photostreams, Photobucket albums, social networking, and other collaborative sites. In the words of law professor and media scholar Lawrence Lessig, we have moved from a “Read/Only” culture on the Internet, in which users can only read content, to a “Read/Write” culture, in which users have power not only to read content but also to develop their own.9 It’s the users who ultimately rule here, sharing the words, sounds, images, and creatively edited music remixes and mash-up videos that make these Web communities worth visiting.