IRC 2.0. Social media for information, relationship, and communication in the web 2.0 era

The rapid pace at which trends, news, tools, technologies, devices, services, etc. come and go in our information society requires of every citizen a certain capacity to internalize the perceived complexity behind the metaphors we are used to hearing from IT professionals, as well as to assess the impact of these changes on everyday life. The article briefly introduces and develops a simplified model that helps in presenting three key phenomena that are relevant enough for understanding the current developmental stage of the Web as most visible part of the Network itself. It is based on three elements (infotechnologies, people and content) and it is developed along three axes (information, relations and communication). The model also wants to serve the reader as an intellectual and conceptual tool to delve into any of its dimensions.