Predicting Collision: Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0

According to a recent BBC UK report, the world of Enterprise 2.0 is expected to embrace Web 2.0 with a predicted annual spending of $5 billion by 2013 for social marketing and networking tools alone.  Predictions for 2009's biggest Internet trends seem overstated and quite obvious at this point, with over half of North American and European companies and corporate business already looking towards the Web 2.0 horizon.  Just as San Francisco, Los Angeles hosts the Web 2.0 summit conference, news of business converging to the Web 2.0 revolution and axis to form the next generation of what we know as the web.  Conference co-chairwoman Jennifer Pahlka says, “This is where we see the future of the web […] the companies making announcements here are building that future.”  Forrester Research Company, which has carried out the former Web 2.0 survey, believes that emerging technologies being developed and unveiled represent a fundamentally reformed channel for businesses to communicate with clients, customers, users, and employees.

The Forrester report has found that consumer giants such as General Motors, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance, Wells Fargo Bank, and McDonald’s will be the driving force for much of Web 2.0’s growth.  Powerful marketing tools such as blogs, RSS feeds, social networking, professional networking/directories, and podcasting are paving the way for new industry giants to take the spotlight.  It is further estimated that an additional 56% of North American and European companies regard Web 2.0 as the top priority of 2008, and soon to be convergence with the ever larger giant, Enterprise 2.0 (Oliver Young, Analyst).  Speculation from research companies and surveys has now moulded itself to self-assured confidence that being on the Enterprise side in the Web 2.0 economy is the beneficial conduit for employees, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and businessmen alike.

Forrester Research Company analysed 7 Web 2.0 categories that will attract the largest levels of investment:
1.    Blogs
2.    Podcasting
3.    RSS
4.    Social Networking
5.    Widgets
6.    Wiki
7.    Mashups

Of the aforementioned, Social Networks are expected to capture the most attention and the greatest levels of investment.  Even these billion dollar capital markets are likely to be dwarfed by multi-billion dollar revenues that will be commanded by the software industry.

The point of saturation between the collaboration of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is expected to slow as Web 2.0 applications become all to prevalent and absorbed in collaborative software packages on the Internet. Advertisers are finding it increasingly more difficult to monetise even from the high volumes of traffic.  The next big thing is capitalising on the business market where revenues are appearing increasingly appealing.

In our previous blog post, we discussed how by 2010 there are expected to be over half a billion blogs, giving people like you and me only about 3 years to make our digital footprint on the Internet.  You can call it the International Web 2.0 "Gene" project with the masses of people looking to map themselves in the ever growing dynamics of establishing an online identity before it’s too late.  Rest assured, that despite the bustling noise of everyone fighting for their share of spotlight in search engine rankings, online visibility, and professional identity – that once you create your LookupPage you are always represented on the first page of Google search results.  You know that they say – online visibility in the world of Web 2.0 is a good thing, but high online visibility in the right place at the right time is an unparalleled feat!  So why not do it the LookupPage way?

Comments

[Sharon Willemsen]

Hi great article! I work at Konnects.com and we offer the enterprise solution to a lot of our members. They find it a great tool for their company and they love this solution. It opens the line of communication. Plus, with more gen y hitting the professional space, thes types of tools will require less training for employees and it's something that they are very familar with.