## 2 General Context: Geocollaboration in the GeoWeb 2.0 Era  
### GeoWeb 2.0: A Socio-Technical Platform for Geo-information Coproduction and Sharing  
Spatial data processing, dissemination and exchange offered by online mapping solutions keep pace with technical advances and the evolving use of the Internet (bandwidth, accessibility) and of the Web 2.0 (interactive applications, rich contents, user-generated contents) [9, 10, 11]. The Web 2.0, as a development environment for the GeoWeb, is characterized by an unprecedented democratization of geospatial technologies that were traditionally exclusive to professionals. The take-up of these technologies by the general public in mobile use situations (Personal Navigation Devices-PND, Location-Based Services-LBS) has transformed the geographic information production and dissemination (contribution) processes, and introduced new forms of mapping (including mobile mapping) in people's everyday lives [12, 13]. This democratization is more the result of Web-related technological advances rather than of geospatial sciences (JAVA, XML, Tag, _etc._). Web 2.0 current technologies offer more flexible architectures, more responsive display, simplified interfaces, extended content interaction and a better interoperability [14]. The emerging model of Cloud Computing enables the development of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) providing similar characteristics (interactivity, functionality and speed) to standard computer software. Based on the use of Web services, these technologies make it possible for applications to communicate remotely regardless of the platforms they run on. These dynamic and interactive distributed services are based on technologies widely adopted and enriched by the Web developer community, such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript) and XML. As a result, GeoWeb 2.0 services offer a coherent group of spatial data handling tools (import, cataloguing, visualization, creation, processing, distribution, _etc._). API (Application Programming Interface), such as Google Maps, Bing Maps or ESRI ArcGIS, give access to the functions and contents of Web applications using external commands, especially for visualization purposes (road networks, satellite imagery, relief, POI). The fast refresh rate to display raster tiles (imagery, plan, relief), the high responsiveness of the zoom and drag tools, along with many other possibilities related to spatial data handling, make these applications very popular. In addition to discovery and visualization of geographic information, API also provides utility programs to manipulate and create data, as Google MyMaps does. Interchange formats that are specific to the GeoWeb (KML, GML...) are now included in geospatial data standards, especially those of the Open Geospatial Consortium-OGC (WMS, WFS, WCS...), which offer better interoperability of data and services. Mapping in the GeoWeb 2.0 environment is dynamic, interactive, multimedia and, more importantly, distributed [15]. The strength of the GeoWeb 2.0 is its capacity to provide, within the Web 2.0 environment, composite geographic applications mixing (following the logic of mashups) numerous Web services and contents under a unified graphic interface, so as to develop new tailor-made applications. The added value of these GeoWeb 2.0 services is the possibility for users to manipulate geospatial data (external or personal), to produce and distribute contents, or even to develop their own tools (converter, widget, layer management, _etc._). Indeed, GeoWeb 2.0 is a place where users can get involved and contribute, through the creation, sharing and modification of contents, while developing social relationships. \"Many to many\" is a wayof communication that allows people to move from interactivity to interaction and, contributes to the building of networks, which are no longer based on information exchange alone but also on knowledge sharing. This type of content interaction (location-based) changes the processes used to produce, update and distribute geographic information.