Rethinking expertise in the web 2.0 era: Lessons learned from project durian

Social software facilitates the linking of people in unprecedented ways and leads to new knowledge creation and application practices. Even though expertise remains an important constituent of these practices, there is a knowledge gap in the literature regarding its role. This chapter was written with the aim of filling this gap by using Project Durian as a case study. Project Durian presented a unique opportunity to study expertise as mediated by social software because it involved both social software and various layers, forms, and configurations of expertise. In this chapter, data from Project Durian are used to examine the outsourcing of tasks and the role that social software played in that outsourcing. Data analysis indicated that, in the hybrid practice that was established, expertise was spatio-temporally distributed, involved individuals with a broad range of skills, facilitated the crossing of disciplinary boundaries, and was renegotiated. The implications of these findings for expertise in the Web 2.0 era are discussed. © 2013, IGI Global