Web 2.0: Opportunities & Challenges

Brian S. Butler, MSIA, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Business Administration

bbutler@katz.pitt.edu

What do these have in common?

Google buys YouTube for $1.65bn (October 2006)

Apache Web Server, an Open Source Software project, is the infrastructure for ~50% of all websites

Wikipedia has 2 million+ articles, all created by volunteers

Massively Multiplayer Online Games were a $1 billion market in North America & Europe in 2006

Dell, IBM, and others creating spaces in Second Life

Time Magazine making “You” the person of the year

Today’s Agenda

What is Web 2.0?

Organizational Applications of Web 2.0

Principles of Successful Web 2.0 Efforts

Adidas in Second Life

What is Web 2.0?

Technologies – Facilitating technologies Blogs Wikis Social networking technologies Predictive markets Virtual worlds RSS Ajax Web Services and Service Oriented Architectures

Techniques – Prompting and leveraging voluntary social activity Social tagging, bookmarking, and filtering Mashups, aggregation, and recombination Social network analysis Referrals, sharing, and word-of-mouth Crowdsourcing & Human Computation

Communities - High profile examples Wikipedia MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn Flickr, Fotolog Second Life Google Maps YouTube

So now that that’s cleared up…

Working Definition

Web 2.0 refers to a collection of technologies and techniques that mobilize highly-distributed, latent resources by facilitating voluntary individual action within sustainable communities

Organizational Use of Web 2.0 Technologies

Use of formally managed blogs for distributing announcements

Restricted wikis as a platform for team archives and document distribution

Second Life as a meeting support tool or training platform

Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) as a basis for corporate infrastructure

Ajax and RSS as a tool for implementing web-based systems and portals

Types of Web 2.0 Efforts

Communities of PracticeDistributed Project

Teams

Nike,

Lostpedia, MySpace,

IBM Eclipse, Wikipedia

Awareness Campaigns, Distribution of Media

Products, Innocentive

Inside an Organization

Created Community

Existing Community

Outside an Organization

Resource Flows in Traditional Systems

Use

External Support

Resources Data Attention Time Hardware Infrastructure Software

Benefits Information Analyses

Use

External Impact

The Web 2.0 Resource – Benefits Cycle

Use

External Support

Resources Data Attention Time Hardware Infrastructure Software

Benefits Information Analyses Visibility Reputation Social Support

Use

Contribution

External Impact

Leveraging Diverse Motivations and Needs

Successful Web 2.0 efforts bring together complementary needs and motivations in synergistic communities

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91

Contributor Rank

% C

ontr

ibut

ed

Seeding and Controlling Structures

Wikipedia contains 3+ millions articles created by volunteers working without formal supervision…

but this community has clearly defined leaders, roles, governance structures, and policies

Technology and techniques provide a context in which the activities can occur – rather than attempting to ensure that they do occur

Web 2.0 Ecology

Expect turnover Successful communities have more turnover than

unsuccessful ones (not less) Focus on managing flows of people (not on

capturing specific individuals people) Accounting for competition

Overall impact on the community and Differential impact on member segments

Selection vs. Design Many community efforts fail (plan for and take

advantage of it)

Be Aware of Hype

Hype (exaggeration, overstatement, etc.) is a bad indicator of the true impact or importance of an innovation

The level and type of hype is a good indicator of the development of the collective knowledge, experience, and expertise around an innovation (e.g. hype cycle)

Hype is a valuable tool for assessing the risk of engaging an innovation (not the benefits)

Key Takeaways

Web 2.0 refers to a collection of technologies and techniques that mobilize high-distributed, latent resources by facilitating voluntary individual actions within sustainable communities

Web 2.0 can be used in a variety of ways (technology use, community building, community engagement)

Successful Web 2.0 efforts: Create and maintain a sustainable resource-benefit cycle by Integrating diverse needs and motivations, Providing structures that seed desired activity, and Account for the Web 2.0 ecology Use hype as a valuable signal of risks not benefits and impact (and

plan resources, development strategy, and evaluation metrics accordingly)