Business spending on Web 2.0 technologies will rise over
the next five years, growing 43% each year to reach £2.3bn globally
by 2013, according to Forrester Research.
The five-year forecast projected that business spending on
social networking
technologies, RSS, blogs, wikis,
mashups and podcasting will rise as firms try to gain a
competitive advantage from social networking technologies by
connecting closer with customers and improving employee
collaboration.
"
Social computing and Web 2.0 marketing is still in its infancy,
and in general, the market is still in an experimentation phase,
but in the long run, the effect of Web 2.0 will be enormous," said
Forrester Research Analyst Oliver Young.
Large enterprises such as General Motors, McDonald's,
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and Wells Fargo have all made
heavy use of these tools, and 56% of North American and
European enterprises consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008,
according to the study.
Currently, large businesses are spending more on employee
collaboration tools than customer-facing Web 2.0 technologies, but
Forrester expects that trend to reverse by next year. By 2013,
investment in customer-facing Web 2.0 technology will dwarf
spending on internal collaboration software by nearly a billion
dollars.
