According to a recent mass Survey, three fourths of the business managers said that they plan to maintain or increase their investment on the technologies which encourage the users to involve more in interaction, such as P2P network, Social network and Web Services.

Although there are still some interviewees in this survey mentioned that their capability in using web technologies hasn’t improve much, but more than half of the interviewees felt satisfied with the result of their past investment on web; there are more interviewees even think that they should take their actions earlier.

 

The benefit of sharing new technologies in emerging market

The retailers used to regard themselves as prudent investors now have already accelerated in investing on new technologies. Yet again, many business managers in the emerging markets, such as business from India and Latin America have tried to speed up to share the benefits brought by these new technologies.

When the web users-led online services like, MySpace, Wikipedia, YouTube has become more and more popular, these technologies called Web 2.0 technology has stepped into limelight. The technologies which need the users to participate together, include Web Service, P2P network, Blogs, Podcasts, Online community, etc.

A recent survey indicated that the interviewees generally show great interested in this trend. Besides the fact that the interviewees fully satisfied with the result of their investment on web itself, they also recognized the great market value of Web 2.0 technology; therefore they plan to increase the investment on developing this technology. However, these companies won’t only focus on the wide-known web 2.0 product such as blogs. Their greatest attention is on the technologies which will enhance the automation and networking.

Half of the interviewees felt satisfied with the result of the investment on web technologies

More than half of the interviewees felt satisfied with the result of their past 5 years investment on developing web technologies. More than three fourths planed to maintain or increase their investment on improving their Web 2.0 technology. (Only 13% of the interviewees felt disappointed with result of past investment. )

Generally, the companies which has taken earlier actions (known as early adopters, and fast followers) in the last investment trend has higher level of satisfaction with their investment than the companies started latter. This result matches the “speed first” ideal in technologies investment.

strong>80% interviewees considered to use web service

More than three fourths business managers who have the ideas of the 9 different Web 2.0 related technologies mentioned in this survey stated that their companies had invested more than one of them. The most popular one is Web Service, 80% the managers who know this technology have or are considering using Web Service, P2P net work is also very popular, 84% managers said they have or are considering using it.

Using Web 2.0 technologies to communicate with the clients and business partners

Many business managers indicated that they will use Web 2.0 Technologies to communicate with the clients and business partners and improve the cooperation within the company. 70% of the interviewees mentioned that they will assist with these technologies to keep in touch with their clines. For example, around 20% interviewees have used Blog to collect the opinions from their customers and strengthen their custom services.

The interviewees also mentioned that in order to have better communication with their business partners and connect with the suppliers more closely; the company will use the web technologies like, Web Service, P2P, Collective Intelligence and Really Simple Syndication(RSS) in the future. These technologies will also help the company in intelligent management.

Last but not the least; through the interview with these business managers, it has been found that the technologies which will bring benefits on automation and cooperation have received much more attentions than those “famous” technologies. Compare with Blog, Podcast and Mash-up, the technologies which can collect ideas and knowledge from more people, or make the communication and information exchange more effective are more helpful to them.

What are in Web 2.0?

Blog, the contraction of the term “Web log”, is a personal online notes or diaries that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. It can be linked to the other website and used by RSS (Really Simple Syndication) user.

Collective Intelligence is a system which tried to gain not the personal knowledge but team intelligence and use this as the basis of decision. The technologies involved in Collective Intelligence includes cooperative publish and sharing database.

Match-up is the service combines different online resources to create new products. For example, people can use one program to search and list certain type of restaurants and then combine this list with Google map to indicate the location of these restaurants.

P2P network is a quick sharing files (music, video or word files) technology. It helps the users to transfer the files by more than one computer through World Wide Web or certain closed net work. Some systems can collect the fragments from different computers and recompose them to get the complete files.

Podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds. The best example is YouTube.

RSS is the technology allows users to subscript news, blogs and podcast or other information.

Online community is the system helps the members of certain website to get the information of each other’s interests, talent, knowledge or habits; Facebook and Linkedin are the examples of this technology.

Web Service can improve the communication between two different systems; it can transfer the documents automatically and process the job ordering. The retailer can communicate online with their suppliers through Web Service and update the storage system automatically.

Wiki, like Wikipedia is the system makes cooperative publish become real, many authors to contribute their articles through this system and participate in discussion.

Edited By Vicky Yin