It is still early days for the real-world adoption
ofWeb 2.0technologies and applications
to help businesses drive revenues, improve productivity, get closer
to customers and reduce costs.
Web 2.0 is already producing leaders -
Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Google - but for many
organisations, coping with its implications remains a challenge
because for the most part, Web 2.0 has been flying underneath the
corporate radar.
In an example of Web 2.0 technology reaping real-world benefits,
a major airline's flight crew has chosen to use Facebook to manage
their schedules, as did management consultancy Capgemini for the
co-ordination of a new starters' "onboarding" programme.
By November of 2007, Facebook had acquired 50 million
subscribers, with many organisational personnel already signed up,
including 17,000 employees from Microsoft, 20,000 from IBM, and
13,000 from Accenture.
Open APIs
One of the key tactics in the battle between Facebook, MySpace
and Google has been the opening up their
application program interfaces (APIs) so that anyone can
develop for them. The opportunity to capitalise on a fast-growing
user base is tempting companies that have been looking for ways to
get involved with social networking but are not keen on developing
their own networks.
Social networking - which sits alongside blogs, wikis, mashups
and RSS as the key tools that define Web 2.0 - can make such an
impact, says Gartner, that, "the failure to consider the impact of
social enhancement technology on the performance of the enterprise
is a big mistake."
So it is no longer enough for IT directors to dismiss Web 2.0 as
simply the next round of web-development technologies, although
some still do. According to Forrester Research in its paper Web
2.0: Social Computing Dresses Up for Business, one CIO has admitted
that he was too close to retirement to grapple with all the issues
that Web 2.0 tools present, and that his successor could tackle Web
2.0 policies and usage instead.
Risks of Web 2.0
Some will inevitably point to the risks to the organisation that
Web 2.0 tools pose through unsanctioned employee usage. Security,
policy compliance, information reliability and licensing are key
issues, but solutions are arriving.
Enterprise software provider Worklight has recently unveiled an
enterprise-secure overlay for Facebook called Workbook, which
allows employees to interact with their peers using Facebook, but
puts it in a controlled corporate environment.
Meanwhile, the
Federation Against
Software Theft's Corporate Services arm is monitoring the wider
implications of Web 2.0's convergence with software as a service
and service oriented architecture, says Phil Heap, managing
consultant within the Federation Against Software Theft.
The risks involved in embracing Web 2.0 are outweighed by the
benefits experts say, and CIOs are already adopting Web 2.0
thinking to deliver a new approach to information creation,
publishing, aggregation, discovery and validation.
Andy Mulholland, global chief technology officer at Capgemini,
sees blogs and wikis as a solution to the curse that e-mail has
become. "When we start talking about problems, we have to find
people and content that could help through a community. Blogs have
become like lighthouses. If the world is flat, then blogs and wikis
are the hills by which you can see everyone."
Mulholland suggests that each Web 2.0 technology offers a
different means of supporting differing requirements. Blogs provide
a platform for individual contributions before a knowledge
community has formed and help to create new areas of interest when
the community gets established. Wikis assist collaboration and
develop thinking using social tagging for the storage and retrieval
of content as it is being built. Eventually, a Wikipedia-like
format should evolve and may become a fixed version that can then
be categorised as conventional enterprise knowledge management.
Paul Dawson, head of interactive media at user centred design
specialist Conchango, says 2008 will be a key year for IT
departments in addressing Web 2.0 issues.
"15% of IT managers' budgets for development projects this year
should be attributed to user initiatives. If not, a company is
going to struggle. Why? Because good user experience means people
come back, and if they like what they see, they will tell their
friends. Products, price and delivery are becoming less of a
differentiator experience and usability are becoming increasingly
important."
Enterprise 2.0
The Web 2.0 world has already yielded a number of secrets that
should be applied within the enterprise. One idea is that
"Enterprise 2.0" must emerge bottom-up from the needs and
activities of its users, rather than being driven top-down by
developers.
A visual example of this cited by Web 2.0 experts is the
development of pedestrian paths within a university campus.
Originally, no pathways were built between buildings, and the
entire complex was planted with grass. After several months, the
common pathways had "emerged" and were subsequently paved. A
parallel concept can be applied to the development of new
applications for the enterprise.
Graham Donoghue, head of new media at travel group TUI, says the
approach he has learned from Google is to encourage his development
team to find applications that are likely to be a success.
"Google splits its development staff's time in between 10%, 20%
and 70% projects. The 10% is for researching things that are new,
or an application that may be useful thinking ahead. Twenty per
cent of their time is spent on adjacent businesses related to the
core businesses in some way, such as Google News or Google Earth.
Then, the remaining 70% is devoted to Google's core search
business.
"There is lots of really good open-source code out there but you
have to find it and exploit it. Does it exist? Can I copy it? Steal
it? Buy it off the shelf? Some of these things are functionally
very rich, but they can be difficult to use."
In those cases, says Donoghue, it makes more sense to find a
leading Web 2.0 company to partner with rather than trying to build
a social network yourself.
"We work together with the travel and lifestyle community
WAYN.com rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. And we integrate
all that Facebook, YouTube, and Google material in what we do,"
Donoghue says.
Peter Ward, WAYN's co-founder, says a number of enterprises make
the mistake of trying to copy a social network or a Web 2.0
application instead of using the expertise already out there.
"Creating a network is the thing that is really different. But
should you try to create your own network, or partner with an
existing one. We can provide access to an API through XML to take
search data from any site and populate that in any way this wish,"
Ward says.
Wayne Helmore, chief executive of Inner Circle Listing, says
using social media can bring you a "torrent" of traffic.
"The key is familiarising yourself with the websites you are
working with and then catering your message to them. That means the
"tone" you adopt at YouTube may be very different to what you say
at Squidoo. Always keep your audience in mind. Remember that Social
Media is about being social. No one goes to YouTube to hear a sales
pitch."
How to deal with Web 2.0
The Corporate IT Forum offers this advice for IT managers
approaching Web 2.0 and social networking within the
enterprise.
- Assess cultural fit: Companies communicating with customers or
staff through social networks or blogs must first understand how
social networking will fit their organisation's corporate culture.
Tightly controlled, top-down organisations may struggle with the
open and unmediated nature of collaborative media.
- Personalise it: Blogs and social networking tools can enable
often faceless corporations to develop or initiate new, strong
relationships with customers, creating greater brand loyalty.
However, communication must be personalised and not written in dry
corporate-speak that nobody will read. Developing a "voice" for
your communication is important in building and maintaining
trust.
- Take the rough with the smooth: Facebook and Twitter allow
customers and staff to offer honest opinions about a company's
products or services. But interacting through social networks means
companies must expect negative comments will be made. Accept them
and be ready to learn.
- Avoid "astroturfing": Do not establish blogs or social
networking sites for any "inauthentic" marketing. Organisations
that develop blogs using fake personas, or which are ghosted by
professional blog copywriters run many risks. Getting caught
writing a fake corporate blog goes beyond embarrassing the CEO: it
damages consumer trust and brand reputation.
- Understand the threats: When staff join professional social
networking groups, information about who employs them and what
their job function is becomes available to anyone on the network.
This leaves users vulnerable to criminals seeking company
information. Training can help raise awareness of this threat.
Remember that employees' social networking communications can be
traced back to a company IP address leaving the organisation liable
for the messages and material posted. This is especially relevant
if a company has set up its own social networking site.
Web 2.0 Application Development Tools and
Technologies
Research group Forrester says that managers within organisations
must adopt new application-development methodologies and techniques
to be able to assemble Web 2.0 applications. The frameworks, tools
and technologies needed to create dynamic applications include:
- Rich Internet Application (RIA) frameworks such as eBay's San
Dimas Client. New RIA platforms from Adobe, Google, Microsoft and
YouTube are pushing Web 2.0 interfaces beyond the browser.
- Dynamic scripting languages such as Ruby on Rails are being
used in the assembly layer of Web 2.0 applications. Ruby on Rails
is popular because it allows web applications to be developed more
quickly than with Java or C#.
- Agile development processes must be adopted to create a state
of "perpetual beta" in which services are upgraded at a sufficient
rate of delivery to keep developers ahead of the competition.