Currently, there is much talk of Web 2.0 and Social Software. A common understanding of these notions is not yet in existence. The question of what makes Social Software social has thus far also remained unacknowledged. In this paper we provide a theoretical understanding of these notions by outlining a model of the Web as a technosocial system that enhances human cognition towards communication and co-operation. According to this understanding, we identify three qualities of the Web, namely Web 1.0 as a Web of cognition, Web 2.0 as a Web of human communication, and Web 3.0 as a Web of co-operation. We use the terms Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 not in a technical sense, but for describing and characterizing the social dynamics and information processes that are part of the Internet.

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The paper deals with the necessity and feasibility of an integrated information theory. It develops guidelines for how to conceive of information in a way that avoids the pitfalls of certain ways of thinking like reductionism, projectivism or disjunctivism.

The paper deals with the necessity and feasibility of an integrated information theory. It develops guidelines for how to conceive of information in a way that avoids the pitfalls of certain ways of thinking like reductionism, projectivism or disjunctivism.Keywords: Information Society, Two Cultures, Subject-Object-Dialectic, Ways of Thinking t was about 10 years ago when I helped organise the second conference on the Foundations of Information Science in Vienna and published proceedings with the title "The Quest for a Unifying Theory of Information". While a considerable number of scientists still today disbelieve in the feasibility of a single generic concept of information, there are several attempts to hypothesise or theorise information in a unifying manner carried out by a strong minority of scientists. E.g., a question put forward by Hans von Baeyer to the audience at the last International Conference on Foundations of Information Science held in Paris in 2005 showed a fifty-fifty vote for either option.The skeptics are right in problematising the threat of being subject to dogmatism. The camp of "unifiers" are right when being unsatisfied by a fragmented world picture. Is there a way to avoid both dogmatism and fragmentation?The paper attempts to argue for a positive answer. It starts from the necessity of an integrated information theory for reasons of finding a way out of the current crisis of civilisation and then shows that an integrated theory is feasible. First it lists several concepts different from the information concept and argues that their relation to the information concept be taken into consideration. It gives an account of possible classifications of existing information concepts and theories. After that it develops a perspective from which integration can be achieved without doing harm to any of the ideas in question. This perspective is the perspective of unity-through-diversity. Ways of thinking, in particular, reductionism, projectivism, disjunctivism and integrativism are clearly defined in order to yield guidelines for how to conceive of information.

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