I remember watching the Hanna Barbara cartoon production “The Jetsons” when I was younger. In most of the shows the main character, George Jetson and his boss Mr. Cosmo Spacely frequently communicated via a futuristic television like monitor that they could speak to each other through and see each other while they spoke. I never thought, as a child, that I might actually see similar real life live technology as an adult. But its here and this technology and is one of the features that make Web 2.0 what it is. Here are some examples of instantaneous communications found in Web 2.0.
Real Time Communications
It used to be that we would communicate with friends and loved ones through the telephone, but computer technology has changed that. Soon after the development of the personal computer came email capabilities. Email allowed people to communicate with anyone in the world, both in the personal and business spheres, and for literally pennies when compared to phone service fees. As we all know, calling abroad can be astronomically expensive.
Email capabilities soon led to other computer communicating technologies. Two of which was voice and visual transmissions through the internet. Today, because technological advancements, people are able to communicate in real time, to each other, both verbally and visually and at a cost that is larger than the monthly DSL fees.
Instant messaging or IM is another form of real time communications that is very popular, even more popular than voice and visual transmissions. Not only do people use IM to communicate with family and friends, but it is widely used as a business tool. Today a consumer can land on a web page and within seconds an option box will appear that will connect them to a sales representative’s IM if they chose. Dell Computers uses this form of on-line customer service.
Another advantage of instant messaging services relates to company to company communications. For example, today business is becoming more of an international activity. One company can own and operate several satellite companies anywhere in the world. Through IM and other real time computer communications a headquarters can give instructions to its satellites and affect immediate results and output. Moreover, visual conference meetings can be conduct without anyone executive having to leave their office. And again, this real time communications is able to be performed at a fraction of the costs of conventional forms of business communications.
Our leisure activities are another place that real time communications has an influence on. Take for example on-line gaming. More and more people are becoming involved with person to person on-line games that are played in real time. Wherever you live you can play a game against someone that can be literally thousands of miles from where you live.
Although Web 2.0 is a concept that relates to how a business can be successful when it applies practices and principles to web business it is also more than a concept. Web 2.0 is real and live.
Web 2.0 is an extensively misused term on Wall Street. It is misapplied to many on-line entities to encourage investing into those companies still entrenched in Web 1.0 practices. Although much of the web’s structure and mechanics remain the same the way of conducting business on the internet has. Web 1.0 says, “Here is a product I will give or sell to you”. It’s a linear business approach. On the other hand, Web 2.0 is oriented toward customer participation and collaboration, an interactive business approach.
Delivering on services and goods, keeping your customers informed of new developments, or having a fancy website with all those funny applets is pretty much outdated. In order to succeed today, in e-commerce, a company must engage their visitors so that they come back. With this in mind one Web 2.0 platform could increase business, while on another your business may not do so well. Much will depend on the search channel you employ. But there are some things you can do to achieve more visibility.
Product blogs and wikis are optimal sources for search engine exposure, as these have replaced forums, traditional product reviews, user groups, and guest books. Blogs and wikis are rich in text, extensively interlinked, updated regularly, and based in semantic markup. Blogs and wikis will help you enlarge the search channel to take in and engage users, but only if you allow your customer and potential clients help drive your internet business.
Some of the interactive elements in podcasts, widgets, AJAX, and videos often confuse search engine spiders and this can prevent a user from finding your pages. If you intend to use these Web 2.0 elements to improve customer interaction and increase conversions then you’ll need to leverage syndication services, mirror sites, RSS, and XML to keep search referrals flowing.
Although AJAX can pose problems with spiders as Flash, it can pull data into a Web page’s background saving users click and wait time. However, there is other valuable pulled information that spiders can’t detect. On the other hand, XML and RSS are highly search engine friendly because they are rich in semantic markup. The only drawback to RSS is that it’s often not well supported in traditional Web search engines, except engines like Technorati or Google Blog Search.
The key to addressing these Web 2.0 problems, at the present, is for businesses to employ effective SEO tactics to expose invisible content to the search engine spiders. Keep in mind, spiders seek matches to a user’s search, so the more SEO strategies a company can put to effective use, in their web pages and marketing campaigns, the easier it becomes for spiders to do their job and get the customers to land on your pages.
However, when using SEO tactics you want to keep them specific to your industry. This will require researching and knowing your industry, as well as having an idea of those search words and phrase that most people interested in your goods and services would use to find your business on the internet.
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