Participation

par•tic•i•pa•tion

1. an act or instance of participating.

2. the fact of taking part, as in some action or attempt: participation in a celebration.

3. a sharing, as in benefits or profits: participation in a pension plan.

–adjective
4. of or pertaining to a venture characterized by more than one person, bank, or company participating in risk or profit: a participation loan.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.


Wikipedia and WikiNews are two of the most prominent examples of successful and widely used collaborative web editing tools, reliant on user participation. Both, among others, highlight some of the key transformation elements of the new emerging web. Other websites such as you tube, ebay and myspace also depend on the users to not only view content, but provide the content and participate by adding more.

With the development and advance of recent technologies such as wikis, blogs, podcasting and file sharing this model is challenged and community driven services are gaining influence rapidly. These new form of media obliterate the clear distinction between information providers and consumers. The lines between producers and consumers are blurred even more by services such as Wikipedia, where every reader can become an author instantly.


Links of Interest

http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2006/04/27/video-youtube-myspace_cx_df_0428video.html