Comments on: Corporate America wakes up to Web 2.0

Collaboration tools such as blogs and wikis are staking out ground inside businesses--and are often brought in by the end users themselves.

[pencoyd]

Blogs and wikis are not Web 2.0

Interesting article, but blogs and wikis are not Web 2.0 tech,
whether they are used in the business or not.

[jabbotts]

I missed the meeting . . .

Before my rant begins, I think the communication applications developed for public use have a very benificial place within business if they can shake the appearance of being time wasting gadgets for highschool kids.

ICQ, MSN and the miriad of other chat programs have an obvious benifit but have been blocked on most business networks.

WIKI applications provide a browser accessed colaborative tool. With more software becoming server side, browser accessed applications, this is an obvious one for business. Email has it's place but dynamic colaborative file and information sharing tools (oh yeah, we're calling them 'wiki' this week to make them sound new).

Before the business world new of it's existance, I was on IRC finding answers to work problems in minutes (back when IRC folk actually wanted to help in help channels). I've seen ICQ used as a staff attendance management tool and interoffice file and messageing tool when ICQ id numbers where still under seven digits. I'm now keenly watching for where TiddlyWiki can be used to improve work flow within my department.


But with all this I missed the meeting to decide this new mystical "web 2.0" suddenly existed. I bet it went something like this:

"The programming community has made a website that does what? Wow, we gotta get a fancy new buzzword for this cause it's so completely new and hip compared to that dusty old 'Web'.. oh.. why don't we call it 'web 2.0' you know, like software versioning."

It blows me away. Oh look, this tcp/ip network thingy can carry these neat-oh new software packets so we gotta have a new name for it now.

It's not 'The Internet' now cause there are these things called webpages (formerly html documents) so now we have to call it 'The Web'. Oh this is so cool, we can market the hell out of this.

It's not 'The Web' now cause there are these nifty things called java, images, videos and holly cow, they can all be included in html documents. Now we'll have to call it 'Web 1.0'. oh this is so cool, we can market teh hell out of this.

HOLD THE PRESS! We've found out that you can now manipulate stuff in the browser as if it was local; no waiting for the page to refresh. Oh, let's call it 'Web 2.0' it sounds so technical. Gosh we sound important when saying it. This is so cool, we can market the hell out of it.

Oh wait, it's just a new combination of programming code evolving to provide a new function over the same old tcp/ip.

I guess it does what the marketing folks want in convincing the general public that there is some mystic new thing in the InterPorn that they are missing out on. The real kicker is that "Web 2.0" was trademarked by some business already with the odacity to send out cease and desist letters.

My point, so very far from where my rant began, is simply the foolishness of "web 2.0" and the string of other conveluted buzzwords and miss-used prefaces. Your not changing the networking infrastructure (no switches where replaced in the making of this advertisement) your just using a freshly compiled program with the abuility to wrap it's own communication functions within the tcp/ip signal. No facy power tie, great over the sholder news visual or fancy buzzword is going to make you any more important than you really are.

[twangboy]

The "consumer web"? Ugh.

Please, please don't call the web the "consumer web." That really is a disgusting phrase. If Web 2.0 proves anything, it's that people really don't want the web to be all about consumption.

The world isn't really divided up into corporations and consumers, as the powers that be would have us believe. Just say "no."

[mewcomm]

Management failures not software

"There was just one problem: People didn't use them" --- Collaborative tools that is.

The reason people in large enterprises with Lotus QuickPlace and/or MS Sharepoint or even Groove did not use them was NOT due to the software. It is and remains "management" failure to drive fundamental workflow change.

Until management ties adoption of new workflow methods to performance reviews and compensation, Web 2.0 will also be of limited success.

[martinedens]

Well well well

More about it:
http://www.what.se/

[kaiplatschke]

no english...

hey... thanks for interesting links - this one is not in english though ;-(

[michal.faber]

Enterprise 2.0 wakes up to Best Practices

Give me your feedback, thanks:
http://www.smart-up.eu/2007/09/07/enterprise-20-best-practices/