CHAPTER 15: CREATING COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

WEB 2.0: ADVANTAGES OF BUSINESS 2.0

The next generation of Internet use – more mature, distinctive communications platform characterized by new qualities such as collaboration, sharing and free. Business 2.0 encourages user participation and the formation of communities that contribute to the content. In Business 2.0, technical skills are no longer required to use and publish information to the World Wide Web, eliminating entry barriers for online business.

CONTENT SHARING THROUGH OPEN SOURCING

Open system consist of nonproprietary hardware and software based on publicly known standards that allow third parties to create add-on-products to plug into or interoperate with the system. Source code contains instructions written by a programmer specifying the actions to be performed by computer software. Open source refers to any software whose source code is made available free (not on a fee or licensing basis as in business) for any third party to review and modify.

USER-CONTRIBUTED CONTENT

User-contributed content is created and updated by many users for many users. Websites move control of online media from the hands of leaders to the hands of users. One of the most popular forms of user-generated content is a reputation system, where buyers post feedback on sellers.

COLLABORATION INSIDE THE ORGANIZATION

Collaboration system is a set of tools that supports the work of teams or groups by facilitating the sharing and flow of information. Business 2.0’s collaborative mind-set generates more information faster from a wider audience. Collective intelligence is collaborating and tapping into the core knowledge of all employees, partners, and customers. Knowledge can be real competitive advantage for an organization. Knowledge Management System (KMS) supports the capturing, organization and dissemination of knowledge throughout an organization. KMS can distribute an organization’s knowledge base by interconnecting people and digitally gathering the expertise.

Explicit and Tacit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge consists of anything that can be documented, archived, and codified, often with the help of IT. Examples of explicit knowledge are assets such as parents, trademarks, business plans, marketing research, and customer lists. Tacit knowledge is the knowledge contained in people’s heads. The challenge inherent in tacit knowledge is figuring out how to recognize, generate, share, and manage knowledge that resides in people’s heads. Related technologies can help facilitate the dissemination of tacit knowledge, identifying it in the first place can be major obstacle.

COLLABORATION OUTSIDE THE ORGANIZATION

Crowdsourcing, which refers to the wisdom of the crowd. The idea that collective intelligence is greater than the sum of its individual parts has been around for a long time. With Business 2.0 the ability to efficiently tap into its power is emerging. For many years organizations believed that good ideas came from the top. Traditional e-business communications were limited to face to face conversations and one-way technologies that used asynchronous communications, or communication such as email in which the message and the response do not occur at the same time. Business 2.0 brought synchronous communication, or communications that occur at the same time such as IM or chat.

NETWORKING COMMUNITIES WITH BUSINESS 2.0

Social media refers to websites that rely on user participation and user-contributed content such as Facebook, Youtube, and Digg. A social network is an application that connects people by matching profile information. Social networking is the practice of expanding your business and/or social contacts by constructing a personal network. Social networking provides two basic functions. The first is the ability to create and maintain a profile that serves as an online identity within the environment. The second is the ability to create connections between other people within network. Social networking analysis (SNA) maps group contacts identifying who knows each other and who works together. It can also identify key experts with a specific knowledge such as how to solve a complicated programming problem or launch a new product.

Social Tagging

Describes the collaborative activity of marking shared online content with keywords or tags as a way to organize it for future navigation, filtering, or search. The entire user community is invited to tag, and thus essentially defines, the content. Folksonomy is similar to taxonomy except that crowdsourcing determines the tags or keyword-based classification system. Using the collective power of a community to identify and classify content significantly lowers content categorization costs, because there is no complicated nomenclature to learn. A website bookmark is a locally stored URL or the address of a file or Internet page saved as a shortcut. Social bookmarking allows users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks.

BUSINESS 2.0 TOOLS FOR COLLABORATING

Blogs

A blog, or web blog, is an online journal that allows users to post their own comments, graphics, and video. Unlike traditional HTML web pages, blog websites let writers communicate-and readers respond-on a regular basis through a simple yet customizable interface that does not require any programming. Blogs are no different from marketing channels such as video, print, audio, or presentations.

Microblogs

Microblogging is the practice of sending brief posts to a personal blog, either publicly or to a private group of subscribers who can read posts as IMs or a text messages. The main advantage of microblogging is that posts can be submitted by a variety of means, such as instant messaging, email, or the web.

Real Simple Syndication (RSS)

Is web format used to publish frequently updated works, such as blogs, news headlines, audio, and video, in a standardized format. An RSS document or feed includes full or summarized text, plus other information such as publication date and authorship.

Wikis

A wiki (the word is Hawaiian for quick) is a type of collaborative web page that allows users to add, remove and change content, which can be easily organized or reorganized as required. While blogs have largely drawn on the creative and personal goals of individual authors, wikis are based on open collaboration with any and everybody. Wikipedia, the open encyclopedia that launched in 2001, has become one of the most 10 most popular web destinations, reaching an estimated 217 million unique visitors a month. The network effect describes how products in an network increase in value to users as the number of users increases.

Mashups

A mashup is a website or web application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new product or service. The term is typically used in the context of music. The web version of a mashup allows users to mix map data, photos, video, news feeds, blog entries, and so on to create content with a new purpose. Content used in mashup is typically sourced from an application programming interface (API), which is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. A programmer then puts these building blocks together.

THE CHALLENGES OF BUSINESS 2.0

Technology Dependence

These days, many people search the information through Internet. Without the Internet, they will find it is difficult to search the information.

Information Vandalism

Allowing anyone to edit anything opens the door for individuals to purposely damage, destroy, or vandalize website content.

Violations of Copyright and Plagiarism

A great deal of copyrighted material tends to find its ways to blogs and wikis where many times blame cannot be traced to a single person

WEB 3.0: DEFINING THE NEXT GENERATION OF ONLINE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Based on intelligent web applications using natural language processing, machine-based learning and reasoning, and intelligent applications. Web 3.0 is the next step in the evolution of the Internet and web applications. Business leaders who explore its opportunities will be the first to market with competitive advantages. Although Web 3.0 is still a bit speculative, some topics and features are certain to be included in it, such as integration of legacy devices, intelligent applications, open ID, a worldwide database and open technologies.

E-GOVERNMENT: THE GOVERNMENT MOVES ONLINE

Involves the use of strategies and technologies to transform governments by improving the delivery of services and enhancing the quality of interaction between the citizen-customer and all branches of government.

MBUSINESS: SUPPORTING ANYWHERE BUSINESS

The ability to purchase goods and services through a wireless Internet-enable device. The emerging technology behind m-business is a mobile device equipped with a web-ready micro-browser that can perform the services.