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Web 2.0 and more interactive communities across the world

February 5, 2007

With Web 2.0 and the growing popularity of social networking, expect interactive communities of Internet users to continue to share common interests and passions on a much larger scale.

Overall, hundreds of millions of Net surfers took Information Technology to a higher level, while becoming content creators at the same time.

On average, people from all walks of life exchange stories or topics and lay out their ideas to just about anyone who’s interested in reading it. Everyone has something to say and hundreds of millions want to hear it.

The Web is now truly interactive today and it seems everybody wants to join in on the bandwagon. “Participative behaviour started emerging in the consumer space when people began using Web 2.0 as a participative place,” says David Jacobson, a director of technology at PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services in Toronto.

Jacobson added “video-sharing site YouTube is a great example of all this. Internet users post photos and videos of themselves and invit comments and make comments. These participative places are springing up all over the Internet today.”

YouTube and the online digital world of Second Life were among the most successful Web communities and clearly demonstrate the real power of Web 2.0 technology in rallying communities of common interest.

Businesses from all over the world now pay close attention and are highly impressed by the masses that could be engaged. Market analysts like David Jacobson and John Madden, a research director with Ovum Summit in Boston, believe that this year, there are many companies that will look for a piece of the action and become extremely active in cultivating participative behaviour in creating online communities interested in what they have to say.

“That next step is to try to take the success of social networking and bring it into the business world,” Mr. Madden says. Other than saying and doing interesting or outlandish things, there’s really no blueprint for a business to follow in order to build its own community of participative behavior.

For example, how might a company create a successful social network to build communities that rally around their brands or products? Success may depend upon lack of control or more specifically a company’s willingness to stand back and allow the online community or sponsored interactive forum it rallies to grow in its own way, Madden says.

“It’s finding the balance between being the Wild Wild West and a stable, more conservative stance.” In 2007 more than ever, it would seem reasonable to assume that many more people will become active participants in social networking communities, and not just during their leisure time.

“We’re living in a new era,” says Jacobson. “Consumers and employees are engaging in participative behaviour during leisure time and their working hours.”

“We’re moving in a very participative and imaginative world, a world where networking and partnering is becoming more deeply absorbed. It‘s vastly enabled now by these Web 2.0 technologies.”

Getting known on the Internet has become a real project for many businesses, Jacobson says, explaining that a small business operator who’s an active blogger “is pretty much going to be picked up by Internet search engines almost everyday, and that’s a great way to spread your news!

“We refer to it as viral marketing. It spreads itself like a virus and almost doesn’t cost you anything,” he says. “Being on the Internet through blogging is an example of viral marketing and advertising.”

Cyber-communities of participative behavior are great places for businesses to learn from and about those who might be interested in retail products and services.

“If your'e a small business, one of the things you might do is test drive new ideas through an online community. It’s a new area of market research,” Jacobson says. “There's lots of inexpensive and very active blogs where you can reach out to people and test drive a new concept or product and see what kind of reaction you get."

He adds" it’s an extension of classic marketing research that was typically not available to smaller companies. The little guys didn’t have that ability before. Now that has all changed, thanks to the Internet.”

Jacobson predicts that this year, new IT technologies will be available to the world of business that will provide the means to deliver unique services to customers who clearly want real-time and interactive online experiences.

Among the most intriguing technologies are emerging wireless communication services offered through mobile phones that are “location aware.” Through certain types of wireless telephones utilizing modern GPS technology, there will the means to pinpoint a person’s exact location from a cell signal and deliver to them a localized service."

Jacobson added "it’s already being used. He described a dating service offered by South Korea Telecom. If there is someone who fits your defined dating profile located within 100 metres of you, then you might receive an e-mail alert message telling you that person is nearby and can arrange an immediate meeting."

He added "a similar application in retail might allow a business to electronically alert people passing near a storefront location to specials or discounts featured that day.

“You could be seeing some of these applications and services come to market this year in fact,” Jacobson says.

Jacobson added" projectors in mobile devices are coming, too. You’ll be able to use a hand-held device like a cell phone or PDA as a projector to display Internet Web pages, movies or live television on any nearby surface."

"A business profession might want to quickly download a presentation from a remote PC and show it to a customer in colour on a wall, Jacobson says.

“The world is moving away from capturing people’s attention, to capturing their intention,” he says. “I’ll try and capture it using multimedia or coming to your office and showing you a video on a wall. It’s highly targeted and personalized content and a lot of it is user originated content.

“These technologies will be focused on understanding and serving ubiquitous participants, whether they are consumers or employees,” Jacobson adds.

Source: IT World Canada