Over the past decade the Internet has expanded its reach to an increasing number of people all over the world (1.32 billion Internet users in Dec 2007) and is almost as much a commodity as the telephone has become after it revolutionized the way we communicated with each other.

The Web as we knew it in its early stages brought us: email, online information, online shopping, online collaboration and an almost instant global reach. These applications are mainly software based and even though the Internet relies on heavy telecommunication infrastructures, our only experience of it comes through our Web Browser (Internet Explorer for example) and our Email Client (Outlook Express for example).

In the software world, it is very common to give a version number to an application. Usually the first version is called 1.0. The next version of the application (version 2.0) usually implies major technical and functional upgrades. If compared to a software driven platform, then Web 2.0 would refer to the upgrade of the technologies and functionalities of the well known Web 1.0.

Tim O’Reilly, who owns what has become the most famous IT book publishing company in North America (www.oreilly.com) coined the term “Web 2.0″ during a brainstorming session looking back and the bubble burst that marked the end of the dotcom years. He was trying to understand what had enabled the few companies that had not only survived the crash but had thrived and been successful throughout that difficult period. Some of them we all know of or have heard about: Amazon.com, Google.com, eBay.com, Craigslist.com, to name just a few.
He was working out what these companies had done differently and if we could learn from the innovations they brought to how we use the Web.

The way an Information Technologist would define Web 2.0 makes little sense to business people but here is an attempt to summarize it without sounding to nerdy:
“Web 2.0 is an important upgrade in the way websites are built and in the way a large and diverse range of people can interact with them through the exchange of content.”

These interactions involve on the one hand a great deal of IT professionals with different specialties (i.e. the suppliers or builders of technology) and on the other hand the users who are people like you and I (i.e. the consumers of technology).

Where Web 2.0 becomes interesting is when one looks at what is exchanged between suppliers and providers of technology: the data. Or in other words the content. That is where the value lies. The content is your merchandise, your company’s info, your customer’s feedback, the emails you exchange, etc.

Web 2.0 is a way of building websites that maximizes the exchange of content between all Internet users through a more robust and flexible technological platform.

As with mobile phones (which are an improved version of traditional landline phones), Web 2.0 offers more freedom to use the Web in many new and improved ways but it also changes the way we interact with each other. And it is not only the way we exchange news with our friends and family but also in the way we interact with businesses and services.

Because the Internet with Web 2.0 has become mostly about content and making it easy to interact with, it has an impact on the way businesses interact with customers. As the Web is more and more part of our daily lives, we develop expectations as customers for companies to serve us on the Internet and not only through traditional means.

Will Web 2.0 impact your business? It probably already has. Whether you know it or not, your customers (as well as yourself) have increased their expectations about the services you can offer them online.

Bookmark to: