Building Web 2.0 sites does not necessarily ensure the success of the site. We aim to better understand what improves the success of a site by drawing insight from biologically inspired design patterns. Web 2.0 sites provide a mechanism for human interaction enabling powerful intercommunication between massive volumes of users. Early Web 2.0 site providers that were previously dominant are being succeeded by newer sites providing innovative social interaction mechanisms.Understanding what site traits contribute to this success drives research into Web sites mechanics using models to describe the associated social networking behaviour. Some of these models attempt to show how the volume of users provides a selforganising and self-contextualisation of content. One model describing coordinated environments is called stigmergy, a term originally describing coordinated insect behavior. This paper explores how exploiting stigmergy can provide a valuable mechanism for identifying and analysing online user behavior specifically when considering that user freedom of choice is restricted by the provided web site functionality. This will aid our building better collaborative Web sites improving the collaborative processes.
Stigmergy is a biological term used when discussing insect or swarm behaviour, and describes a model supporting environmental communication separately from artefacts or agents. This phenomenon is demonstrated in the behavior of ants and their food gathering process when following pheromone trails, or similarly termites and their termite mound building process. What is interesting with this mechanism is that highly organized societies are achieved without an apparent management structure.Stigmergic behavior is implicit in the Web where the volume of users provides a self-organizing and self-contextualization of content in sites which facilitate collaboration. However, the majority of content is generated by a minority of the Web participants. A significant contribution from this research would be to create a model of Web stigmergy, identifying virtual pheromones and their importance in the collaborative process. This paper explores how exploiting stigmergy has the potential of providing a valuable mechanism for identifying and analyzing online user behavior recording actionable knowledge otherwise lost in the existing web interaction dynamics. Ultimately this might assist our building better collaborative Web sites.
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