Actualization of social capital in social media: prospects of Web 3.0, semantic and sensor web

The metamorphosis of the World Wide Web has culminated into the transformation of businesses, social interactions, the flow of information, etc. Adoption of WWW has culminated into the emergence of different forms of social media which have been supported by ever-evolving technological solutions and platforms. The exponential growth of social media has stimulated various avenues of discourse for scholars and practitioners. Both cyber-pessimists and cyber-optimists fervently draw attention to the pros and cons of social media. This paper seeks to contribute to this discourse by attempting to elucidate the role social media plays in promoting social capital in individuals in a developing world context. Social capital encapsulates the value of social networks, bridging different peoples, and bonding similar people, with reciprocity being a common characteristic of these interactions. Consequently, the value of social capital in personal development is well established in literature. The past century has witnessed a steady erosion of social capital. Hence cyber optimists view social media as a platform upon which social capital can be regenerated. This conceptual paper reviews some models that have been utilised in accentuating the value of social capital in contemporary networked environments, especially in developing world context.  This paper posits that social capital can be appropriated harnessed if emerging technological platforms such as Web3.0, the semantic and sensor webs are utilised optimally in different community value chains.