Pros and Cons of Web 2.0 Technologies

By Renee Oricchio

For most CIOs, the Web 2.0 technologies spreading like wildfire through large organizations are simply headaches. Compared to traditional technology solutions, Web 2.0 technologies are unstable, less mature and more difficult to integrate. These technologies also tend to compromise security and present a potential nightmare for compliance.

"CIOs are not particularly pleased," says G. Oliver Young, an analyst from Forrester Research. "From their point of view, [Web 2.0] wrestles control out of their hands and into the hands of users."

Web 2.0 refers to a variety of social networking technologies that have been lumped together under one heading. The term was coined in 2004 when some industry leaders started to recognize the Web as a platform that supports a myriad of increasingly popular social networking tools. Web 2.0 now includes blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and other similar technologies that have been adapted to the workplace to allow employees to interact while they may be physically located thousands of miles away -- or even in a neighboring building.

In fact, in a recent survey conducted by Clearswift, a Redwood City, Calif., content security company, 87% of U.S. workers said that they access a Web 2.0 site at least once a week, while 63% visit at least once daily.

The most popular applications include:

• Wikis  Popularized in the consumer mainstream by Wikipedia, wikis in the workplace function as a more efficient way to collaborate and streamline information. Imagine a project team using a wiki as a clearinghouse to communicate latest developments, progress and problems as they arise.
• Blogs  Whether in a team setting, company-wide, or even customer-facing, many organizations are finding blogs to be a much faster way to telegraph updates, rather than through email or other traditional methods.
• Tagging Content  Essential to tailoring information on a "need to know" basis for staffers who can't afford to be bombarded by too much information, tagging allows information to be flagged and served up by subject.
• RSS Feeds  RSS feeds let workers know when there is new information on that wiki or blog that is of interest to them. As Forrester's Young puts it, "RSS is the grease that makes this whole thing run."

Enterprise applications for Web 2.0
Despite the obvious reluctance, the CIOs who are embracing Web 2.0 are finding more uses at the enterprise level than their counterparts at the small and medium-size business level. 

"That was actually the finding that surprised me the most," says Rachael Happe, a research manager from IDC, referring to a recent survey she authored. "A lot of these applications really shine in a complex, opaque environment typical of a larger organization."

While conventional wisdom might suggest Web 2.0 would be a more obvious choice for the smaller organization (they are typically cheap, if not free, and easy to adopt at the user level), Happe believes social networking tools are a great complement to more traditional solutions. They make it easier for large numbers of team members to work across departmental lines and geographic distances. 

Workers in that same study indicated that they actually use these so-called "social networking tools" less for socializing and more for work purposes. So how are they being used? Young says that, in the business environment, Web 2.0 tools basically fall into two categories:

1. Internal use This is where IT managers are most likely to see employees steering the ship as Web 2.0 solutions take employee-to-employee collaboration to a whole new level. "It's so much more efficient to take all of that internal information from email, for example, and put it on a blog or a wiki and use it to engage a team or department," Young says. "These tools make great light project management tools."

2. Customer-facing use "Creating a social network around a product is tremendously valuable to marketing," says Young. Indeed, more companies than ever are using blogs (and other social networking tools) as a way to solicit customer feedback and offer "backstage" access to product teams creating pre-launch excitement. When Intel recently announced its new line of Pentium chips, consumers could follow all the details through the team development leader's blog. Dell recently decided to go back to offering Microsoft XP in its PCs, after 11,000 customers demanded an alternative to the newer Microsoft Vista operating system through IdeaStorm, Dell's new customer feedback blog.

Despite the headaches, CIOs still adopt Web 2.0
Whether it's for internal or external use, the reasons for adoption of Web 2.0 technologies remain the same. In another survey, this one soliciting the views of CIOs and authored by Young for Forrester Research, results show the primary motivator for moving into Web 2.0 is to increase business efficiencies. The number two reason: fear of not keeping up with the competition. In the survey, 74% of CIOs from companies with more than 5,000 employees cite concern about their competitors beating them to the punch by deploying Web 2.0 technologies, while only 46% from smaller organizations agree.

The reasons for not adopting are equally interesting. Nearly half of the CIOs surveyed who haven't rolled out 2.0 tools say it's because they just don't see the need yet. In the survey, 35% say they have more important problems to solve.

Another interesting nugget from that same survey shows IT decision makers would be more willing to adopt Web 2.0 tools if they were bundled into a suite. Some very familiar big names don't need to be told twice. An assortment of Web 2.0 suites are either heading for market or were recently launched from such companies as SAP, Oracle, IBM, Intel and Cisco.

The launch of new products confirms some of the findings in the survey of CIOs by Forrester. While many CIOs are not exactly embracing these technologies, only 4% believe that Web 2.0 is a passing fad.

Renee Oricchio is a freelance writer in Norwalk, Conn. For the past 20 years, she has been writing and producing news segments about technology and business for CNN, MSNBC, Ziff-Davis, CNet and a variety of Silicon Valley-based local news outlets.