What is Web 2.0? Interactivity and Social Networking are taking over!

Are you running Web 2.0? A dramatic shift has occurred worldwide on the Internet that will impact your business whether you follow it or not.

Web sites of the last century were diverse, but one characteristic is that the content was driven by the corporation. Polished and informative brochure-style sites contained loads of information on company history, products, purchase information, and other static business information and resources. Researchers from institutions, marketing and sales divisions of corporations and information sources loaded the Internet with information and valuable content.

The new Internet, or Web 2.0, is driven by individuals. 

A Wikipedia definition:  “Web 2.0” refers to what is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies.
[Citation: Web 2.0. (2009, July 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:14, July 10, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_2.0&oldid=301344373]

While companies are still posting and adding content in scores, the change is in the fact that the majority of what people say online is no longer managed by corporations or their staff.  Millions of people share information daily on social networking sites, such as Facebook (over 5 million members) and Twitter. In fact research shows that searches for social networking has FINALLY surpassed porn!
“According to Bill Tancer, Hitwise’s general manager of global research, Web searches for social networking sites have finally surpassed searches for pornography.” [Source: Gina Hughes: The Techie Diva, blog, Yahoo Tech!, Tue Sep 16, 2008 7:39PM EDT]

By enabling and allowing information sharing and collaboration, the Web has become a shared “application” where the content begins with PEOPLE, not business or companies. Smart companies are joining in the conversation by adding corporate blogs, joining Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and more.

Leading edge are letting their customers post actual messages and receive feedback in real-time on their sites. It takes guts to allow your customers to post their true feelings about your products on your Web site, but the companies that do this are seen as sincere, honest and businesses where you will want to spend your money! Are you ready to give it a try?

–Deborah York Geiger, APR, owner of Content Fresh LLC, maintains a blog at www.geigerpoint.wordpress.com. With 20 years experience in marketing, public relations and business, Deborah writes about technology for business professionals. Deborah is currently working for Honours Golf in Gulf Shores, Ala.

 

What the heck is so “Delicious” about it?

Ever wonder why everyone is talking about the bookmarking site, Delicious.com? For business professionals, the site can save a tremendous amount of time and may lead to better research than simple online searches. For anyone, the site is just plain fun.  Wikipedia describes the site as follows:

Delicious (formerly del.icio.us, pronounced “delicious”) is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Delicious uses a non-hierarchical classification system in which users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen index terms (generating a kind of folksonomy). A combined view of everyone’s bookmarks with a given tag is available. Delicious has a “hotlist” on its home page and “popular” and “recent” pages, which help to make the website a conveyor of internet memes and trends. Delicious is one of the most popular social bookmarking services. Many features have contributed to this, including the website’s simple interface, a simple REST-like API, and RSS feeds for web syndication. Use of Delicious is free. All bookmarks posted to Delicious are publicly viewable by default, although users can mark specific bookmarks as private, and imported bookmarks are private by default. The public aspect is emphasized; the site is not focused on storing private (“not shared”) bookmark collections. Delicious linkrolls, tagrolls, network badges, RSS feeds, and the site’s daily blog posting feature can be used to display bookmarks on weblogs.

[Delicious (website). (2009, April 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 12, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Delicious_(website)&oldid=282765505 ]

The site works like a robust version of your “favorites” on your browser. As a writer, I often use several tools I have stumbled upon over the years. I have so many favorites bookmarked on my desktop computer it is often difficult for me to find what I KNOW I have saved. I also miss having those bookmarks when I am working from home, traveling for business, or am at a friend’s computer. Delicious solves these typical problems of access and organization, and provides some very useful tools for business professionals as well. Here are my top five:

1. Tags. The “non-hierarchical classification system” is a system of tagging your bookmark with keywords. No longer do you have to remember which folder you filed it or what you called it. With enough keywords, it is possible to never lose that bookmark again. Some of the most popular tags are: design, blog, video, software, tools, music, programming, webdesign, reference, tutorial, art, web, howto, and the list goes on.
2. Sharing. Have you ever sent a link to a colleague in an e-mail? Could you find it today? With Delicious, you can share links and favorite finds with a private group of people by setting up a network or two. You could have a network with a client group, other employees, or volunteers of a committee. The sharing is phenomenal, and you always have the option of setting a link to “private.” So you don’t have to post publicly all the places you might shop online, or the travel destinations you follow with your office colleagues!
3. Widgets and Toolbars. Delicious makes it easy to use the site and share your research. You can place a “My del.icio.us” button at the top of your browser, allowing you to view your save pages at the click of a button. Importing the bookmarks currently on your system is easy, and sharing them on your Web site with a widget is incredibly easy. Check out my company’s, here: http://www.myfreshcontent.com/services.asp
4. Research. With Delicious you can enjoy the fruits of others’ labors. I write for businesses of all sizes and Internet research is a large part of my day. When I need to find more information about a specific subject, there is no better place to look than pages that others have bookmarked as valuable. Since the tags are written by people, the search results are more intuitive than those generated by automatic search engines. Delicious also posts how many users have bookmarked a specific page, which gives you an idea of how popular it is.
5. Delicious content. Spend a few hours on this site and you’ll know why they called it “Delicious.” Using the “popular bookmarks” and “explore tags” on the home page, you are lead to the most interesting content on the Internet and a pleasant way to lose track of several hours!

–Deborah York Geiger, APR, owner of Content Fresh LLC, maintains a blog at www.geigerpoint.wordpress.com. With 20 years experience in marketing, public relations and business, Deborah writes about technology for business professionals. Deborah is currently working for Honours Golf in Gulf Shores, Ala.