The social web as an ecosystem of networked improvement communities (NICS). An interplay of user engagement, technology improvement, and the business opportunities as enablers.

The social web has intervened in every aspect of our lives; however, any instance of its power still lies in the network of people interacting, and their contributions comprise the chunk of the co-creation involved. The technological tools employed by companies to harness the co-created content from users are themselves developed and contributed by users within the social space of a networked community or inter-networked communities within the social web. Therefore, in the new age, users are not only co-creating content but also co-creating an increasing amount of technology as a way of pursuing improvement. These so-called networked improvement communities (NICs) comprise of individuals, organizations, or both. Although there have been studies on NICs earlier, little research has been conducted on their role in the context of the social web.

This dissertation explores the NICs in the open source arena for such technological developments. This is done first by recognizing the contributions of the open source community in improving mobile platforms technology. Second, the contributions of both individuals and organizations are analysed in a case study of OpenStack open source cloud platform development via qualitative and social network analysis. The dissertation further highlights the improvement of technology as a consequence of utilizing sensors with the social web, emphasizing how the combination of two concepts within a NIC provides innovative solutions for health and safety, especially for children. It further explores the co-creation of content by users and provides a conceptual glimpse of sensors as social intelligent devices that can turn the social web into a social sensor web.

Lastly, the dissertation attempts to show that the holistic phenomenon of the social web presents an ecosystem dynamic of NICs that support each other by producing or consuming content or code/technology. This user engagement as content or code contributors, technology improvement, and business opportunities are key enablers of the social web. In addition, this dissertation proposes a dimensional taxonomy of user contributions in the social web.