Web 2.0 tools greatly expand the options for disseminating information and for communication between researchers, practitioners, and the public.

Web 2.0 tools are web-based applications that allow users to actively generate content and interact with other users. It thus differs from Web 1.0 applications, where passive users consume content created by experts. Web 2.0 tools can improve participation in decision-making processes. With these instruments, non-experts can gain/create information and process data online. Such tools may thus be an opportunity to improve public participation in regional development. Approaches like that of WIKIAlps may thus be considered a promising approach in the ongoing enhancement of collaborative territorial development in the Alpine Space (Borsdorf et al. 2015)¹⁾ .

According to Fredericks and Foth (2013)²⁾ they bear the potential to:

• Integrate people that are physically unable to attend civic meetings in urban and rural development processes;
• Engage younger people through new media to participate in decision-making processes;
• Offer stakeholders that decline personal contact with experts an option for participation;
• Monitor, analyze, and enhance public participation in planning processes.

Following Elwood (2010)³⁾ , problems with these new technologies in the context of territorial development include the social and political constructedness of geodata, the knowledge policy concerning spatial information, and the role of geotechnologies and social media in monitoring and influencing citizens.