Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 24, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The use of so-called “Enterprise 2.0 tools” is emerging both in the internal networking of companies’ own employees and in external communication with target and dialogue groups. Corporations’ annual investments in Web 2.0 projects are expected to grow to almost five billion dollars by 2013. More than half of companies in Europe and North America already consider Web 2.0 a priority.
“This is where we see the future of the web,” says Jennifer Pahlka, co-chair of the Web 2.0 conference on the next generation of the Internet, at the event in San Francisco. The new technologies and developments of the coming years would reveal “fundamentally new ways” for companies to communicate with employees and customers, Forrester Research analyses. This is said to apply mainly to large companies and corporations, while medium-sized and small businesses are still not relying on the advantages of modern Internet marketing. Web 2.0 services help save costs compared with conventional databases and closed IT systems, resulting in competitive advantages. However, companies need solutions to successfully integrate Web 2.0-based working methods into existing processes.
Networked marketing and idea management will make collaboration via the Internet even more important in future than it already is. The budget for this comes from IT system funds and is reallocated to enable new concepts. This can take the form of either open or closed platforms. Brand corporations such as General Motors, Coca Cola and McDonald’s have long since discovered tools such as blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts and social networks. Among the various services, social networks account for the largest share of investment in the predicted boom. Spending on social networks is expected to rise from around 150 million dollars at present to as much as two billion dollars annually. While North American companies will make around 60 percent of investments in Web 2.0 projects, European corporations continue to lag behind. Various corporate efforts are regarded as conducive to development, such as providing users with important data efficiently at any time and enabling easy networking among colleagues and with business partners.
