Riding on the popularity of internet and explosion of social media, new media works on the unique principle of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere and on any device.

USP of New Media

The unique selling proposition of new media is the high degree of “interactive user feedback”, something that was amiss in traditional media techniques. Contrary to several old school media techniques which worked as monologues, new media is an active proponent of creative participation and community building.

The sociology of new media lies in its dynamism and interactive relationship with media consumers.

Democratization of Media

New media is a mass-access service as opposed to traditional techniques which were limited in reach and worked for only a select few. It’s fair to say that new media has led the democratization of media for all kinds of businesses by opening up new avenues of creating, publishing, distributing and consuming media content.

Is TV dead?

Though I’m a staunch social media loyalist and a new media admirer, I still believe that TV as a marketing medium isn’t dead yet. I believe that TV and print media can work wonderfully well in conjunction with new media to maximize business gains for any organization. In fact, TV experience has completely changed from what it used to be 5 years ago. Live TV on internet has further boosted the popularity of TV channels and continues to demonstrate the increasing influence of the web in our lives.

New Media Case Studies

The web is full of millions of new media success stories, none better than one of the world’s most popular sites – Wikipedia. Built on a collaborative model, Wikipedia showcases a rare combination of digital text, images and videos. It provides real-time feedback to users and it’s a wonderful example of how community based sites are supposed to work.

Analogies

The term new media is often used in context of internet being used as a distribution platform, as a mix between existing cultural conventions and software conventions and even as an amalgamation of modern media techniques with communication technology.

Globalization Effect

We live in a globalized economy and no customer is too far, courtesy of the wide reach of new media. It has played a crucial role in building viral communities spanning geographical and cultural borders, thereby providing businesses with a unique opportunity to target customers worldwide.

Social Change

A popular saying quotes that “Man is a social animal”. While that’s true, our social needs are constantly changing. Media techniques which worked perfectly in the past may not be crowd pullers today and vice-versa.

Websites, blogs and wikis have played an instrumental role in driving a social change movement through out the world and will continue to do so.

The post The Social Evolution of New Media appeared first on Smedio.

We are very pleased to announce that yours truly smedio is turning one today! We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the smedio family (esteemed readers, team members) and our well wishers as well as our critics who’ve been a part of this amazing success story. We’ve cherished having you on board as part of our growing community and we look forward to your continued support for the future.

Here’s a quick look back at the smedio success story during the past 12 months.

January 2010 – When it all started!

Social media has been all the rage in the last year or so. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that a plethora of social media blogs and online magazines have surfaced on the internet in the last 12 months. When we officially launched on this day exactly one year ago, February 5^th, 2010, we were just another face in the social media crowd.

Smedio was conceptualized in January 2010, as a new media and social web guide for businesses and marketers. Right from the beginning, our aim has been to continuously define the business value of new media and the social web by equipping you with the needed insight and innovative ideas to help your business grow even more, using technology, new media, and the social web by bringing you useful breaking news, latest trends and techniques that you can use immediately.

While most of our competitors have served as social media news broadcasters, we’ve been working relentlessly to bring you quality content on how social media can add value to individuals, businesses and non-profits, while keeping you up to date on all the latest trends and tools.

The Journey till now

Though we started off as a lesser-known face in the social media world a year back, I’m pleased to announce that we are ranked amongst the Top 0.22% websites on the internet – with some big names as our elite company.

• A quick look at our recent Alexa stats:

Smedio.com is ranked #67,741 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. While roughly 39% of this site’s visitors are in the US, where it is ranked #29,107, it is also popular in the Netherlands, where it is ranked #7,003. Compared with the overall internet population, this site appeals more to women; its visitors also tend to consist of childless, highly educated users browsing from work who have incomes over $30,000. The site has a relatively good traffic rank in the cities of Calgary (#823) and Cebu (#1,240). Visitors to Smedio.com view 1.7 unique pages each day on average.

• Several smedio posts have featured amongst the Top 3 search results on Google. Whether it’s the Ted Williams episode, the Girl Scout social media case study or unveiling Quora to the world, our posts have been ranked well above several better-known and bigger websites/ blogs.

It’s overwhelming to know that smedio reaches out to people from all walks of life across different geographies, age groups and ethnicities. During the course of last year, we are blessed to receive valuable feedback from our audience as we continuously strive to improve smedio.

What next?

As always, we’ll continue to strive to make smedio better and better. We appreciate the continued support of our readers and we have a lot of improvement scheduled for the New Year.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to reposition smedio as “The New Media and Social Web Online Magazine”. Of course, we’ll continue to provide quality social media content for businesses and marketers in order to help them take educated decisions on their social media needs.

Once again, we’d like to thank you all for your continued support and we promise you that smedio is only going to be bigger and better from here on. We’d also like to seek your valuable feedback on how we can improve and any other suggestions that you may have. Please share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

The post Smedio is 1 Year Old – Thanks for Being Part of Our Success appeared first on Smedio.

Most of us are very familiar with and have been using Twitter as a means to connect in our respective online social networks. This application allows us to broaden our network of friends online and update our contacts with what is happening in our lives through our status updates. However, it can only give as much; we have to type in how we are, what we are thinking about, and where we are or where did we come from. A lot of people have been watching out for another app that can challenge this social network giant.

This application works quite differently from Twitter, since aside from updating our status and connecting with friends online, this app allows you to find your Twitter friends in real time when you are in the same place at the same time. It allows you to find out new things to do in different places. Now with the introduction of photos and comments, it is making all the right moves.

This app has already gained substantial popularity and has attracted a lot of buzz amongst social networking fanatics. It has been dubbed as the next Twitter or Facebook, as the social networking powerhouse of the future. This innovative app is none other than Foursquare.

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is essentially a location-based social networking website, an application for mobile devices, and a social game. It allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location. Foursquare utilizes the built-in GPS of a mobile device like that of iPhone’s to display your current location and show restaurants, bars, parks and other attractions found in your location. When you visit in any of these different venues, Foursquare enables you to “check in” using text messaging or a device specific app. It updates and broadcasts your current location to your friends, while also being able to actively take part in a fun social game with other registered users as Foursquare awards you points and badges for checking in at venues. You can also unlock new features in Foursquare when you check in more later on.

Foursquare in turn allows you to see where your friends have checked in. This is helpful especially if you want to meet up with them or just find new things to do in those places where your friends already checked in. This application was initially planned to be used like Twitter, but basing post on a user’s location. Instead of posting random ideas or news like in Twitter, Foursquare users can enjoy using the app by updating their friends as to where they are by updating their location. Thus, you can post shouts about what you are currently doing in a specific venue. It also enables you to search for your friends, add more friends and find more venues within your city.

Moreover, Foursquare also allows you to wire reviews and tips about a certain venue, which will appear to other Foursquare users. These tips would include everything from the best selections to order off the menu of a well-known restaurant to the prices of the services you might want to avail in a local salon.

The Foursquare mobile app is currently available to iPhone, Android, webOS, Blackberry, Nokia and Windows Mobile Application users.

Coming Back After Getting Written Off

Foursquare was created by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. Crowley and Selvadurai previously created a similar social networking app to Foursquare called Dodgeball in 2004. Internet giant Google bought the rights to Dodgeball from the two in 2005 and even got them in to further develop the product. However, Google decided to shut down this social networking app without much explanation in 2009. Crowley definitely disapproved of Google’s move to dump the project, but he decided to join forces with Selvadurai once again to work on another product very identical to its disappointing precursor.

Hence, Foursquare was created in 2009, and albeit very similar to Dodgeball, it received an opposite reception from the virtual community. It started with availability in the 100 worldwide metro areas where the service was only accessible. When the Foursquare founders decided to extend the service further by changing its location model to permit check-ins from any locale worldwide in January 2010, the service started to boom and become increasingly popular. The site is exponentially increasing its registered users each and every day. It has around 5 million users from across the globe as of December 2010.

With its growing popularity, Foursquare has been considered by a lot of people as the next Twitter. With this potential at stake, Foursquare is now being pursued by another Internet giant, this time Yahoo! Inc., which has offered the founders as much as $125 million. Google must be regretting its previous decision by now.

How it works

Here is how Foursquare works: each time a user goes anywhere in the world, they can use their mobile devices to check in to these locations and earn points. Some locations have tags for check-in frequency, thus a user can earn badges by checking into such venues. Some urban locales offer users city-specific badges that can only be attained in a specific zone. Foursquare has already made updates on the way they handle badges. Thus, when a user acquires a certain type of badge, that person will have the same type of badges across all cities. Once a badge is acquired by a user, it will stay in his or her profile for an indefinite period.

This social game allows users to play with and compete not only against the network of friends on Foursquare, but also against every Foursquare user not included in your network who are also in the same city on a weekly basis.

Users are also able to create their own “to do” lists for their own use, where they could list down all the locations that they would want to visit and check in. Foursquare also features a Tips section where users can key in information about the city attractions they have checked in, such as the things to do or the food to eat at the venue.

The social gaming feature of Foursquare has become beneficial to business establishments. Founders Crowley and Selvadurai have started to secure partnerships from different local companies to work with them and to have mutually profitable relationships. In February 2010, Foursquare partnered with Zagat, Bravo, Conde Nast, and the New York Times. These companies will share information and tips to Foursquare users through their website and offer special badges at city attractions they have featured in their publications, websites, and shows.

Superuser Status

To make the playing field more competitive, Foursquare provide three level of “superuser status.” They can be attained by users who check in regularly or enter new information about several venues into Foursquare. Obtaining superuser status will unlock additional features and give users the ability to perform new tasks, depending on the superuser level.

Superuser status level 1 will allow users to edit venue info like address, phone number, Twitter details and map pin location, mark venues as “closed”, and inform Foursquare about duplicate venues. On the other hand, Superuser level 2 can edit venues, remove tags, add venue categories for any venue, and merge duplicate venue listings; while Superuser level 3 adds the ability to create and delete venue aliases and delete fake/spam listings, which are starting to infiltrate Foursquare.

Foursquare Mayor

Foursquare has a feature that allows a user to become the “mayor” of a location. If a user checks in to one location on several days more than anyone else, that person becomes the Foursquare mayor of the location. Becoming a mayor allows you to receive actual prizes or benefits from some business establishments in a city, like dining discounts and free drinks. The title can also be stripped off if someone else checks in more than the previous mayor.

Location-based Social Network

Foursquare is not the first of its kind that helps you connect with friends on a location-based social network format through a mobile device with GPS capabilities. Actually, Brightkite was one of the first online services of its kind to penetrate the market. However, what made it unsuccessful over the years is because it had so many features but missed its essence. Indeed Brightkite took technology to the next level and offered a lot of features. But, they all proved useless, unlike Foursquare that has a clear-cut purpose. Its service did not appeal to users who are not interested in knowing about where people are, unless they know them personally and are their friends in the first place.

Google Latitude is another location-based social network service that failed to become successful because it lacked originality, foresight and usefulness. Google just ripped off the concept from Brightkite and assumed that their LBS will gain more popularity because it was, in fact, Google-made. And yet Google did not make the extra effort of creating unique features that would make it stand out and useful.

It would be wrong to assume that Foursquare is just another app that jumped on the LBS bandwagon, copied the concept and improved on it, and was just lucky enough to become popular. Remember that the founders of Foursquare are the creators of Dodgeball, the certified first ever LBS app. Foursquare is just the product of the continuous perseverance of Crowley and Selvadurai to make their initial vision into reality.

Twitter’s Challenger

Foursquare was much in the same shoes as Twitter in its early days. Initially, their services have been mocked and misunderstood as useless apps. But both have been considered as game changers as more people are beginning to take notice, actually use them, and realize their importance. However, with Twitter’s resounding success, Foursquare is coming from behind and daring to challenge Twitter in the social networking wars.

Foursquare is already considered as the next Twitter, but the founders are not contented by this. It wants to become the perfect LBS app and a more useful service than Twitter. Unlike Twitter, where a random tweet goes off into cyberspace to ‘maybe’ no effect, Foursquare users’ check-ins and other activities would actually help other people. Foursquare’s “tips” feature allows users to share information on places that are worth checking out. Users can leave tips about a location with friends and strangers alike. The service is also beneficial to business establishments found under Foursquare’s radar that need help to flourish.

The post Is Foursquare the next Twitter in the making? appeared first on Smedio.

It’s all about the traffic

Nobody knows it better than an online marketer that when it comes to promoting your business on the web, it’s all about the traffic. The greater traffic you are able to divert to your site, the higher the probability of turning your website visitors into customers. Social bookmarking sites get your website indexed by leading search engines and therefore your site will show up in the search results when customer searches for relevant information.

Backlinks are great for any business that wants to expand its online footprint. Many individuals and companies are more than happy to pay for quality backlinks. With social bookmarking sites, you get high-quality links which are guaranteed to be indexed by search engines for the best possible price – Free!

24×7 Updates

The best part about these social bookmarking services is that they are always on the job – 24×7. They are a continuous feed for search engines which usually place them at higher priority than other websites in order to index new content.

Social bookmarking sites offer a fantastic way of consolidating the incoming links to your website and keep people updated with latest content.

Targeted Traffic

Social Bookmarking websites don’t just offer traffic quantity; they offer traffic quality as well. Search Engines which scan these sites for information usually store them in a well organized fashion so that when a user searches for specific information about a brand or business, it returns the most relevant information. Therefore, there’s more targeted traffic on your website and there’s a higher chance that you’ll be able to retain visitors on your site.

Improve Business Relationships

Social Bookmarking services help immensely in order to improve business relationships. You can collaborate with partners and resellers and help spread the word collectively about your services through social bookmarking sites. Such collective submissions are a win-win situation for every business. Digg is a popular social bookmarking service used by many companies in order to serve the dual purpose of showing up high on search results and collaborating with other companies in order to strengthen their business relationships.

How to go about it?

First things first, you need to be very careful in your submissions to social bookmarking sites. If the submissions are not authentic or appear as spam, that’s the end of your social bookmarking ambitions. Make sure to choose an interesting title for your submissions. The title should grab the attention of readers and yet be informative. Avoid using pushy or promotional language. View the most popular bookmarks on these sites to understand what makes them special. Ensure that your landing page is well organized and provides all the desirable information in an easy to understand format. Users hate pages with complicated designs and they are likely to report those to administrators of popular social bookmarking sites.

Do not overdo postings on social bookmarking sites. Spamming approach does not work on social networks and social bookmarking sites are no different. Lastly, if you find it too much of a hassle to execute a social bookmarking campaign, leave it to the specialists – hire a SEO company which can do it effectively for you.

The post How Social Bookmarking Can Help Your Business appeared first on Smedio.

So, how does a small business practice social media optimization and what are its benefits? Let’s walk through the details.

What is Social Media Optimization?

As the name itself suggests, social media optimization is the process of adopting the right mix and match of social media for your small business. The first and foremost challenge for a small business is to change their mindset and be flexible towards embracing social media. To change is difficult, but not to change is fatal. Most small business owners are worried that they just don’t have the required resources – time as well as staff to venture into social media.

Be it using a Facebook page or a Twitter feed to promote your business or using LinkedIn in order to build professional contacts, there is no “One size fits all” approach when it comes to social media optimization.

Right Strategy + Do your homework + Right Execution

While social media adoption is no rocket science, it’s not child’s play either. A small business needs to have a well-planned strategy on how to use social media for its needs. The stakes are high as a small business usually has no margin for error. You need to do your homework before you decide to jump on to the social media bandwagon.

You need to be well aware of how your competitors are making the most out of social media and be prepared to challenge them head-on. It’s also must to have a Plan-B in place should your original plan backfire.

What works for your business?

Social media offers a wide gamut of services – be it blogs, micro-blogging networks like Twitter, pure social networks such as Facebook & Myspace, professional networks such as LinkedIn, social bookmarking services such as Digg & Delicious, blogs and wikis and a plethora of other tools. What works perfectly for some other small business may be a perfect recipe for disaster in your case and vice-versa, so it’s important to take educated decisions.

If you build sophisticated products with explicit user training needs, then publishing videos on a dedicated YouTube channel is a great idea. However, if you are a retail store planning to launch a 50% promotion off on select products, Twitter and Facebook might be better-suited options in order to spread the word.

Many businesses overdo it because its’ FREE!

All good things in this world are free and so is social media. Unfortunate as it is, most people have a tendency to exploit the ‘free’ aspect to its limits. Social media offers immense power to your business and that too without any substantial costs; therefore it’s hardly surprising that many businesses goof-up by being pushy and overselling things using social media.

My advice, don’t forget that “A pat on the back is not too far from a kick on the butt, so be judicious in your social media implementation” Good luck!

The post The Social Media Optimization Process for Small Businesses appeared first on Smedio.

Two fantastic artists, both heartthrob performers – Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber have been engage in one of the most high-profile and fierce online battles of recent times to outscore each other on YouTube and Twitter. Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ video was the most watched video on YouTube until it was toppled by teen sensation Bieber’s “Baby”. Welcome to the new age of social media wars – where YouTube and Twitter serve as ammunition and social media enthusiasts serve as loyal soldiers.

Irrespective of whether you are in the Lady Gaga camp or Justin Bieber’s team, the eventual winner of this fearsome battle is none other than Social Media and I’m simply loving it.

The YouTube Battle

Lady Gaga ruled the YouTube charts until Bieber’s clip was launched and surged ahead, leaving Gaga in the second place. However, Gaga fans hit back strongly and pushed her ‘Bad Romance’ clip back to the top slot amongst YouTube’s most watched videos. The seesaw puzzle continues and Bieber’s Baby video has again seem to taken the lead even as I write this post. It’s phenomenal that the two artists have a combined viewership of nearly 750,000,000 views on YouTube – that’s simply staggering!
To Bieber’s credit, he has three videos in the Top 10 listing on YouTube as compared to Lady Gaga’s two clips. It’s phenomenal that Bieber’s videos have been a smashing hit despite being hacked last month and linked to porn/ adult sites with some even going to the ridiculous extent of claiming that Bieber has been killed in a crash.

Bieber is widely regarded as the next big teen sensation with a seductive golden voice and is currently on tour in United States to promote his hit album ‘My World 2.0’. He says that votes/ views don’t matter to him and what matters is the love and respect of his fans and well-wishers. Well said for a 16-year old who’s shot to stardom with his latest album. Bieber’s achievements appear all the most astonishing when you consider the fact that ‘Baby’ premiered on the Vevo site and not on YouTube.

Twitter War

While Bieber is leading the charts on YouTube, it’s fair to say that Lady Gaga rules Twitter. Bieber has even been accused of faking his Twitter count in order to make him appear more popular than he really is. On the other hand, Lady Gaga has been on-song on Twitter and Facebook for the last couple of months managing to surpass the likes of US President Barack Obama for number of fans/ followers. It’s little surprise that she is regarded as the most popular living person. Even on Twitter, she has amassed a massive following of more than 5,000,000 users – no mean achievement to say the least! She is well set to leap ahead of Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher.

While Bieber has been publicly praising Lady Gaga on Twitter, there’s no doubt that there is fierce competition between these two bestselling artists.

Facebook Face-off

As on Twitter, Lady Gaga seems well ahead on Facebook as well. She has a whopping 13 million fans as compared to Bieber’s 8 million fans.

I personally like both artists and their clips so I’m in both camps. And their ever-increasing fan following on these websites is a testimony of how social media has become an inseparable part of our lives.

The post Lady Gaga vs. Justin Bieber – The New Age of Social Media War! appeared first on Smedio.

Social media and old media go hand in hand. They are meant to compliment each other and not to replace each other. Critics may argue that there’s a lot to learn from social media and old media now has a bleak future. On the contrary, I believe that social media is passively promoting the cause of old media. As a savior, social media is saving old media from dying down its natural death.

Social Media Augments Old Media

Let’s face it – old media is irreplaceable. For example, consider a business that wants to launch a press release about its latest innovative product. While social media offers some fantastic ways of promoting the press release on the internet, it cannot replace the old school way of issuing press releases.

Social media has transformed the way PR agencies operate in today’s modern age of Web 2.0. Communication happens at lightning speeds over the internet and offers an unparallel reach to massive audiences. You create a press release, publish it online and then spread the word about it through leading social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

While old media had a limited audience, social media has taken it to an altogether unprecedented reach.

More Platforms = More Readers

Social media is a ubiquitous experience. It is not limited to just computers and can be accessed using several other means such as mobile phones, Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) and IP TV. While old media was largely limited to print media, social media opens up new avenues by offering unconventional modes of communication.

The easier it is for people to access the information, the more the readership – as simple as that!

Two-way Communication

While old media was by and large one way traffic, social media adds a new dimension to it by allowing the customers to engage in meaningful conversations with your business. People just love to talk back and old media offered limited opportunities to do so. With social media joining the fry, customers have a great opportunity to speak their minds and provide feedback to businesses.

Social media therefore avoids the one-way traffic approach of old media and leads to numerous untapped opportunities.

Self-sustainable Media

Critics often point out that cost is a major deterrent when it comes to old media. It is simply not self-sustainable. On the contrary, most social media services come at the best possible price – Free! Therefore, social media offsets the cost factor associated with conventional media techniques and helps create a self-sustainable hybrid model of advertising that leads to best of both worlds.

Social media is NOT meant to replace old media. Rather, it’s a savior and promoter to the noble cause of preserving the time tested old media techniques. As a business organization, you should concentrate on getting the maximum benefits out of the lethal combo of old media and social media.

What do you think about it? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment here.

The post How Social Media is Saving Old Media appeared first on Smedio.

To answer these questions, it is important to understand that different social media channels work best for different organizations. There is no “One Size Fits All” approach when it comes to promoting businesses through social media channels. So, which social media channels should you choose and why?

Social Networks

While some social networks work well for B2B brands, others can do wonders for B2C brands. LinkedIn is a great example of a social network which is perfect for B2B market scenario. On the other hand, Facebook Fan Pages are better suited for B2C brands.

Facebook offers a unique appeal to audiences and allows you to create a dialog with existing and prospective customers through images, video, text, and interactive applications.

Micro-Blogging

If you were wondering how I dare miss ‘Twitter’ in the list of Social Network channels, well, it was intentional. Twitter is NOT a social network. It is a micro-blogging service which IMO is better suited to B2B brands than B2C brands. However, with Twitter’s ever growing popularity amongst celebrities and businesspeople alike, I’d hardly be surprised if Twitter goes on to be a bestseller social media channel for B2C brands than it already is.

Blogs

Blogs are clearly more suited to B2B brands as compared to B2C businesses. Blogs and Wikis are the best social media channels to promote an enterprise but they don’t work well for consumer brands primarily because they demand prior knowledge.

However, it’s not uncommon to promote B2C brands on blogs which rank ‘high’ on search engines like Google and Bing. Further, online advertising tools like Google AdSense make blogging a popular social media channel for a number of businesses.

Video Sharing Sites

Customers love to see things in action and there’s nothing better than an attractive video to lure the customer to a brand. Promotion through online videos hosted on YouTube has played an instrumental role in the success stories of many B2B and B2C brands. It is especially suited to businesses catering to multimedia and entertainment industry.

Social Bookmarking

Digg and StumbleUpon have helped revive the fortune of many businesses worldwide. Social Bookmarking is a great way to passively promote your business through social media for both B2B and B2C brands.

Ubiquitous Social Media

I’m a huge proponent of ‘The More, The Merrier’ and promoting a business through social media channels is no exception to that rule. I love multitasking social media tools such as Ping.fm and Onlywire which can publish stuff to almost all social media channels in the blink of an eye.

Imagine the power of reaching out to millions of customers spread across hundreds of social media channels: social networks, blogs, microblogging services, social bookmarking sites, etc, at a single click! Awesome, isn’t it?

Does your company have a social media presence? If so, what social media channels do you use and why? We’ll be glad to hear from you.

The post The Best Social Media Channels for Businesses appeared first on Smedio.

Why Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is all about using collaborative tools such as video conferencing, Web conferencing, instant messaging, Wikis and Blogs. These collaborative technologies gain more importance when employees from different business units and often split across multiple geographical locations and time zones work together on a common task.

How can Web 2.0 help my business?

Google Apps, an online document sharing and collaboration tool has gained immense popularity over the last few years. Microsoft Live, another web 2.0 implementation, has also helped businesses transform their communication using real time messaging, on the fly file sharing etc. Many companies are already using such technology to deliver web-enabled front-ends for complex applications.

Wikis are a cool way of sharing information effectively within an organization and without having to worry about the aspects of security, maintenance and access issues. Web 2.0 technologies also help companies reduce operational costs by encouraging the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model. The growing trend of SaaS delivery model for delivering functionally rich, web-based applications also serves as a good indicator of the growing prevalence of Web 2.0 use in businesses.

The adoption of Web 2.0 technology has been of particular importance for larger enterprises, which have a lot of data and complex functionality to integrate across multiple application sets. Further, Web 2.0 is a great proponent for automation of tasks, thereby helping to improve the overall productivity and efficiency of an organization.

Business Value of Web 2.0

Many people often ask me how Web 2.0 can add value to my business. IMO, there are 3 key ways in which the adoption of web 2.0 technologies adds business value to an organization.

1)    Optimal Utilization of Resources

2)    Active Participation of Employees as Contributors and Co-Creators

3)    Promoting Unique, Hard to Reproduce Data Sources

The USP of Enterprise Web 2.0 is to promote best practices for creating Web experiences amongst business people, IT team, and users so that we make the most of the systems, users, and information that we have.  For example, the vast, aging inventories of otherwise useful information are one of the major wastes in most businesses today.  Web 2.0 encourages us to put it all online, make it user organized, findable, and to build a community around it.

There’s no doubt that the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies is the first step down a promising new path. These are endless possibilities and the prospects look pretty good. I hope that the next Web 2.0 success story that I hear is yours!

The post Web 2.0: The Key to Success for Businesses and Professionals appeared first on Smedio.