"Web 2.0, mashups and social networking - what is it all about? "

continued...

Given the availability and relative ease of implementation of mashups, people will also demand more from us smaller players. For example, not so long ago, having a basic map to your premises on your site was a great customer service. In the time ahead, people will want detailed instructions of getting to your premises from wherever they are - street by street, road by road, turn by turn - complete with photos of surrounding buildings and landmarks. 

It appears that thinking too hard is becoming an optional extra for human existence ;) - although, with many of us becoming "specialists" in given areas in our lives and with data overload becoming a real problem, perhaps we just don't have the headspace for thinking about "menial" issues any more.

General user communities will also become increasingly important - using forums as a marketing tool only or just for traffic generation will fall by the wayside in many cases - it's already very tough to make a forum succeed. Clients and visitors want to interact with each other, but also with you and the wider related communities. It's all very tribal :).

Getting into Web 2.0 - the easy way

There's no need to start scurrying to implement mashup applications right away - simple as they are in many cases, there's still a learning curve and developing your own API's is a more complex task.

For starters, I suggest if you have content you wish for others to reproduce, while offering articles directly from your site is a great way to go, you may want to consider automating this somewhat using an RSS web feed - it's pretty simple to implement. 

In doing this, you may also be able to get broader exposure by providing data for mashup developers to include in their applications and for industry commentators and journalists to have an easy way to keep up to date with what's happening in your sector. It doesn't have to be just articles you use. You may have a catalog with items containing technical specifications which could be useful to other sites. Just be sure that there's an easy way for the person viewing the content on the other site to make their way back to you.

Invite developers to comment on your feeds; ask them how it should evolve. You may find some of them wanting to collaborate with you in improving your feeds in a way that will benefit you as much as them.

If your site doesn't offer content for reproduction, I suggest starting a blog or a forum and implementing an RSS feed around that. It's just a matter of posting news items from your industry, but not just repeated in a parrot-type fashion; inject your own spin and opinions and relate it back to your own business if possible. Encouraging comment is also important, it keeps a topic alive and interesting.

If time allows, get involved with other social networking services; use them as a launching pad for getting the word out about your company - just as many bands are doing via MySpace.

While the new "connected" generation presents us all with many challenges, especially those of us whom are smaller players; there's some great opportunities as well. The popularity of Web 2.0, mashups and social networking applications will allow for viral marketing in ways and with reach not possible before. 

Michael Bloch
Taming the Beast
http://www.tamingthebeast.net 
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