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Technological innovation in digital communications, epitomised in the shift from the informational web (Web1.0) to the interactional web (Web2.0), provokes new opportunities and challenges for social research. Web2.0 technologies, particularly the new social media (e.g. social networking, blogging and micro-blogging) as well as the increased accessibility of the World Wide Web through highly portable and prevalent devices like smart phones, tablets and netbooks generates new forms of data which are of significance for social research as well as new methods and techniques for analysing this kind of data. Even though we are in the midst of this rapid innovation, it is nonetheless possible to distinguish three basic lines of argument about its current and prospective impact on social research. Some commentators suggest this innovation generates methods and data that can act as a surrogate for more traditional …