Ideation & Consultancy

How can you utilise the best of web 2.0 in order to boost your business and generate new income streams?

What exactly is Web 2.0?

The exact definition of Web 2.0 can be ambiguous. It does not relate to any specific version change in any of the web technologies, but in a more general change in the way developers and users interact with the web. First described by Tim O'Reilly in 2005, the term relates to a perceived second-generation of web-based applications encompassing web based communities and hosted services which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users, thus leveraging the power of “the long tail”.

Stephen Fry, in the Guardian, described Web 2.0 as “...an idea in people's heads rather than a reality. It’s actually an idea that the reciprocity between the user and the provider is what's emphasized. In other words, genuine interactivity, if you like, simply because people can upload as well as download”

When approaching a project, we find it useful to have a more pragmatic definition of what we mean by Web 2.0. That's why we came up with this checklist for making the most of Web 2.0 in any project or development:

• Are we producing Standards Compliant HTML and CSS?
  Standards are important as they promote accessibility and ensure support for our sites across many platforms. We also consider support for micro-formats (for example, similar to vCards and iCalendar formats) which promotes consistancy, and future support of compatible readers.

• Are we utilising AJAX where appropriate to provide a rich user-interface?
  Using AJAX makes our applications more responsive because trivial operations are performed in the background, rather than requiring a complete page refresh.

• Are we sharing data with web feeds?
  As users become more sophisticated they want to aggregate data, updates and news from all sites they frequent. For example, using services like iGoogle or netvibes that provide a personalised home page. Do we support open systems, such as RSS, that allow users to take their data with them, and easily access activity updates from our site?

• Are we enriching our service using other Web services and APIs?
  Web services enable one site to reuse the data from other sites, or bring together multiple services, also known as “mash-up”. For example we might want to include mapping functionality by integrating using the Google maps API, or pull in product information from Amazon using provided API access to their database.

• Do we provide social networking tools?
  One of the key defining factors of Web 2.0 applications and services is the interactivity provided for users. By enabling communication, collaboration, and sharing between users (for example with blogs, commenting, forums, wikis, etc) we can leverage user-generated content. Providing social networking tools, and linking into other social networking platforms (for example using Open Social), can also drive uptake of our application and help grow our user-base virally.
  

We can help you understand and explore these issues. We can help you integrate this into your current site and services, or help plan, design and implement new functionality.

How do these features surface within your market? How are they applicable to your users/customers? Would they be considered cutting edge? Would these features be used immediately or are you planning for future use as users become more sophisticated?