The Geoweb: a revolutionary and empowering technology?

A prime reason that we are attracted to the idea of the participatory Geoweb is that user generated content (UGC) is supposed to revolutionize geography and traditional geographic information systems on the web:

"Websites such as Wikimapia and OpenStreetMap are empowering citizens to create a global patchwork of geographic information while Google Earth is encouraging individuals to develop appplications using their own data."

In the coming months and years we intend to test this hypothesis that citizens are truly empowered by these new technologies (and, indeed, what empowerment means).