Program by Track

As businesses tirelessly search for new channels to influence customers, a new Internet buzzword is rumored to lead the next big marketing frontier. 

Web 2.0 is mentioned in boardrooms, referenced in IT venues and questioned by marketing departments still struggling with the implications of a Web log. Positioned as the best thing since the iPod, Web 2.0 is often mistaken for a formal set of next-generation Internet technologies for collaboration and information sharing.

Seldom with any definition, the phrase pops up everywhere. It has embedded itself into the mainstream vernacular with little understanding, while featured on the pages of Newsweek and Wired magazines. When Googled, 255 million hits return.

But what exactly is Web 2.0? More importantly, does it even exist?

Wikipedia, the widely recognized online e-reference guide, acknowledges that the term “lacks of set standards as to what ‘Web 2.0’ actually means, implies or requires. The term can mean radically different things to different people.”

The Economist recently subtitled an article: “If it’s cool, it’s probably Web 2.0.” That message captured the very mystery of the subject, while failing an attempt to define it. The term was initially coined by O’Reilly Media following the dot-com bust in 1999. O’Reilly recognized that while the commercial side of the Internet was sorting through its own rubble, the Internet still held powerful marketing potential.

With that, Web 2.0 was hatched as a nebulous catchall to identify the newest generation of Internet collaboration, such as the popular networking sites MySpace.com, FaceBook.com, Flickr.com and YouTube.com. 

For many people, the term has become a fallback to denote anything online deemed innovative. Wikipedia in of itself is considered Web 2.0, a site where anyone can enter a definition and allow others to edit the original entry.

Discussion groups and message boards first emerged as new media, but have evolved into Web logs, wikis, instant messaging and podcasting – or as many consider them, Web 2.0.  But the very notion that Web 2.0 is anything tangible clearly is fiction. 

True, it is a high-level description of a segment of the Internet, but trying to label such a dynamic and localized culture is like pinning the tail on art, literature or music in a single snapshot of time. It would be similar to renaming European Renaissance art “Art 12.0” back in the seventeenth century. This, however, would have likely left Chinese artisans from the Ming dynasty scratching their heads. 

If today’s online social networking is Web 2.0, then just what was Web 1.0?  Was there ever a Web 1.5? And who will be tasked to characterize Web 3.0? The term is nothing more than a vague attempt to promote a segment of Internet technologies by those in a position to benefit from it.

The Internet and its vast array of technologies have evolved into so many different things that trying to capture it all into a single definition, a sole thought or even a set of close standards is at best reckless. 

The Internet’s billion-plus users are constantly finding new ways to tell their story, connect with others and sell their wares in a variety of methods.  Grouping them all into a single category is impossible.

Nonetheless, there is a nugget of fact in the fiction: While inappropriately named, Web 2.0 does capture a new breed of social networking that is valuable to businesses and individuals. And, there will continue to be major innovations to the Web that will forever change the way individuals experience the Internet and how companies interact with their customers.

Taking a cue from household brands like General Motors, Ford, Microsoft and Maytag; many are increasingly using the Web to present and sell their products, as well as to talk to and listen to their customers – all in an attempt to influence buying decisions. And, with 172 million Americans online, no company can afford to overlook the Internet as a way to connect with its customers. 

The key is to find the right mix of interactive tools that fits your business to inform, brand and market to your customers while providing a forum for them to talk to you.  So the next time someone suggests stepping up your Web 2.0 capabilities, ask for details. Then ask, “What exactly is Web 2.0?”

Attend this session and you will learn:

• The future of websites and Web Content Management
• About the staying power of Web 2.0
• Why you might want to integrate Web 2.0 and Web Content Management strategies (even though they are counter to each other)
• How some organizations are putting this approach to use

Social software and Web 2.0—notably blogs, wikis and social bookmarking—offer powerful business opportunities and an advantage to staying competitive on the internet. Prescient Digital Media’s VP, Client Development, Julian Mills, will outline the value of Web 2.0 technologies and their associated ROI potential. Web 2.0 refers to websites, products or services that are highly interactive, deep in dynamic data and harness collective intelligence. However, given that its proponents can’t fully define it, we shouldn’t be surprised by its struggle to enter common business parlance.

Web 2.0 offers a valuable resource for many companies. At a relatively low level of cost and effort, organizations are increasingly beginning to harness this valuable tool. Within certain circles, there is a passionate and wide-ranging discussion about how Web 2.0 technology will transform the way companies do business. While the debate won’t be settled soon, there can be no question that this technology is being embraced faster by consumers than by corporations. And that adoption pattern has significant implications, both for how technology enters the corporate environment, and for the competitive advantages early corporate adopters can gain.

This session will take the audience beyond the hype of Web 2.0 and deliver a jargon-free understanding of the concept and its enabling technology, specifically: Key technologies and applications enabling Web 2.0, including blogs, wikis and RSS; Statistics and examples of the emerging trends around Web 2.0, notably social networking; consumer generated media and enhanced communities of practice and management models required to harness the power of these new applications. In addition, the audience will leave with a concise checklist they can use to develop a tangible Web 2.0 action plan for their organization.

This session is geared towards a wide ranging audience from those well versed in Web 2.0, to those with little or no Web 2.0 knowledge, who are simply interested in what the hype is all about. Participants are sure to come away from the session with not only a firm understanding of Web 2.0 technologies, but also the associated opportunities involved with this exciting trend and how it can directly benefit your specific company or line of work.

Capitalize on the explosive growth of social media outlets and learn how to employ many of the time-tested best practices for social media optimization to generate additional brand awareness, website visits and product exposure for your online property at popular social news and bookmark services such as , Reddit, YouTube, MySpace, Stumbleupon, del.icio.us, and popular sites like Techmeme, popurl and other blogs and news sites that syndicate social news.

Learn the difference between active SMO, passive SMO and Social SPAM. Master the necessary content development techniques that will generate attention (through traffic and incoming links) for your Web property. You’ll also learn how to design and develop pages that rank well organically in search engines and motivate visitors to act on your unique selling proposition once they arrive on your Web property.

This session will benefit those with an initial interest in social media optimization and intrigue those with more experience.

How does a global corporation like Siemens AG, with a massive accumulation of content assets and internal knowledge, effectively share its collective wisdom across a global, multilingual employee audience? Learn from one of Siemens’ billion-dollar divisions, which is tackling this challenge with a powerful sales and marketing portal that uses multiple Web 2.0 concepts in practical ways to serve an enterprise audience. 

This workshop-style session will provide the back story and process by which ISITE Design (a full-service interactive agency in Boston, MA and Portland, OR) created an enterprise enterprise portal. It will discuss how the site leverages tools and concepts including web CMS, Google search appliance, faceted search, user-generated content, folksonomies, online employee communities and collaboration, document management and content ratings – and make it available on six internal global sites in nearly a dozen languages.

Beyond highlighting functional and technical parts of the effort, this event will also solicit audience participation, commentary and self-reflection to help participants vision how a “Web 2.0-meets-the-enterprise” approach could provide a powerful answer to their content and knowledge management needs. It will also provide tactics to help participants overcome cultural and executive resistance while showing the value of such an approach.

Take-away lessons include:

• Usable ideas for applying Web 2.0 concepts inside your enterprise
• Practical uses of folksonomies to categorize corporate content/knowledge
• Tactics to help you gain executive support and pitfalls to avoid
• Ideas for rallying internal support from a resistant employee culture
• Best practices for weaving together multiple technologies (CMS, Search, etc.) to create a powerful solution
• Best practices for web content translation

This workshop for IT managers, web professionals and those thinking about implementing an online community for their organization, association or group.

This workshop takes a holistic view of collaboration and examines people, process and technology. We will track trends in collab-oration to see how today’s environment came about, as well as looking at scenarios for future technologies and their adoption. Virtual worlds, the semantic web and 3-D collaborative environments will be examined. A wide variety of virtual team spaces (VTS) and online community tools will be explored, including a number of open source environments and mash-up frameworks.

This workshop will also include best practices for groups and teams that work at a distance as well as the 10 rules for online communities and social network success.

A variety of exercises to determine collaborative alignment, team alignment, and strategies for getting around some common roadblocks in online community, as well as some strategies for driving traffic to communities as well as viral marketing will be explored.

While blogs and wikis get all the attention, most organizations are still trying to get a grip on their “standard” web content management implementation. What is it that makes many web 2.0 applications a success, while most CMS implementations are so hard on their users? How can we use this to make these implementations work?

Adriaan will start off the discussion with a presentation on why a blogging cat is funny, but not very useful, while there’s a lot to be learned from the fact that it’s apparently so easy to blog even a cat can do it. After a couple of examples, you’re invited to join in on the discussion of what we can learn from web 2.0, and more importantly, how we can use this to our advantage in classic CMS implementations.