Metaphors of the Web 2.0

This study is an attempt to semantically decompose the most popular metaphorical expressions associated with two particular Web 2.0 practices: social networks and folksonomies. What is a ‘friend’ on a social networking Web site like MySpace and StudiVZ? Is it polite to ‘poke ’strangers on Facebook and ‘give ’them‘ fives’ on hi5? How can we ‘subscribe’ to RSS feeds, if we don't pay subscription fees? Do we really ‘broadcast’ ourselves on our YouTube ‘channels’? These and other similar questions are dealt with from the perspective of the referential and the conceptual approaches to meaning, i.e., what these words stand for (referential/extensional approach) and which concepts they signify (conceptual/intensional approach). Thus, from the referential point of view, a ‘friend’ on MySpace is only a hyperlink directing to a profile page of another MySpace user. But from the intensional point of view, a ‘friend’ is a subscriber to the content generated by the profile owner.