Innovative start-ups

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[edit] Silicon Valley Web 2.0

In Silicon Valley the most polular buzzword today is Web 2.0. Unless you're a techie, figuring out what it means isn't easy. Web 2.0 technologies bear names like wikis, blogs, RSS, AJAX, and mashups. Web 2.0 is projecting a real sea change on the Internet. If Web 2.0 folks weren't so geeky, we might call it the Live Web.

1. photo-sharing Flickr
2. reference source Wikipedia
3. teen hangout MySpace
4. active participation and
5. social interaction

Experimenting

Soon we will see how they're starting to experiment with a growing array of collaborative services, such as wikis. Companies are starting to test the use of MySpace, Facebook, and other social-networking services.

The reason: As appealing as that social aspect is

• for teens and
• anyone else who wants to stay in closer touch with friends,
• it's even more useful in business.

After all, businesses in one sense are social networks formed to make or sell something. Corporate-oriented social networks are gaining a toehold. LinkedIn, OpenBC and other online services for people to post career profiles and find prospective employees, clients or partners are the recruiting or prospecting tools of choice for a number of companies.

Wierd or Wired

In 2003, people thought of those services as a weird form of social networking, now they are accepted by large and smaller companies. How can you get started? Companies are starting to test the use of MySpace, Facebook, and other social-networking services.

1. Create a MySpace page.
2. Open a Flickr account and upload a few photos.
3. Write a Wikipedia entry. Create a mashup at Ning.com.

[edit] Web 2.0

According to Business Week: "And though these Web 2.0 services have succeeded in luring millions of consumers to their shores, they haven't had much to offer the vast world of business; yet."

For all its appeal to the young and the wired, Web 2.0 may end up making its greatest impact in business. Just as the personal computer sneaked its way into companies through the back door, so it's going with Web 2.0 services.

• We already have to live with globalization and outsourcing
• Enterprise 2.0 can flatten the organizational boundaries between
  • managers and employees and
  • between the company and
  • its partners and customers

Experimentation

The essence of Web 2.0 is experimentation, so you / we / companies / individuals / start-ups should try things out. Then there's blogging. It's worthwhile to spend considerable time

1. reading some popular blogs,
2. which you can find at Technorati.com,
3. to get a feel for how online conversation works.
4. Only then should executives try their hand at blogging
5. and perhaps first inside their companies before going public.
6. Thick skin is a requirement, since the "blogosphere" can be brutal on anything that sounds like spin
7. And companies should to provide open forums for their customers to express themselves.

[edit] Wikis

We use wikis, and / or other group-editable Web pages, to turbo-charge collaboration. Modern firms are using button-down, casual social-networking services such as LinkedIn (we too) and Visible Path (new to me) to:

• dig up sales leads and
• hiring prospects from the collective contacts of colleagues