Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies on Business

Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies on Business

1. Introduction

Web 2.0 is a technology that uses the virtual world, social networks and other communities to share, organize, create and communicate content to users. This technology is taking over the older or traditional methods of marketing and has become a challenge for marketers. The traditional way of marketing is one-to-many, in which a single person markets goods or services to a number of target customers. When it was realized that the impact of marketing when it is done by someone already known to the target customer is way higher and more effective than the traditional one, many-to-many marketing strategy came into the market. This is because of the fact that when something is marketed by someone already known to the target customer, they tend to believe them easily as they find them more reliable. Web 2.0 technology truly revolutionized such type of marketing and introduced new ways of reaching target customers easily and effectively. Today use of Web 2.0 technology in marketing is increasing dramatically because of the fact that the number of people using social media is also increasing with the same pace. The impact of Web 2.0 technology on different businesses is clearly visible and this technology and to say that this technology will stay in use for many years to come looks perfectly logical.

2. Literature Review

2.1. What is Web 2.0?

There are multiple approaches to understand what Web 2.0 is. The most common thing in all definitions is that the term Web 2.0 is taken to all applications that generate "Social Networking" and are oriented web applications to end users.

"The term Web 2.0 was coined by Tim O'Reilly in 2004 to refer to a second generation of Web-based user communities and a range of special services, such as social networks, blogs, wikis and folksonomies that encourage collaboration and exchange of information between agile users"[].

Considering the connotation of Social Media, it can be discerned that the term Web 2.0 is among its main exponents or in all such kind of applications that generate community. Among the most popular are social networks are Facebook , Jigsaw , LinkedIn , Orkut , Spoke and Xing .

2.2. Synthesis of the Literature Review on Web 2.0

It is very difficult to find a definition of Web 2.0 by unanimity in the press, specialized blogs or academic communities. The term was publicized in 2003 by Dale Dougherty of O'Reilly Media. This suggested that the web was in a period of rebirth or transformation, with a paradigm shift and a change in business models []. We have chosen to study the concept from a review of extensive literature in the field of management science to better understand its impact on organizations and possibly the creation of a new paradigm.

Our literature review shows that there are few articles on the SI and the Web 2.0 problems are treated fairly conventional compared to other generations technology. Some articles use the models developed in ...