Recently did some research for a group presentation on implementing Web 2.0 technologies. The idea was to get varying degrees of opinion regarding the matter, report back, and present in a kind of round table discussion. These decisions depended on the fictitious company we were given.
The most surprising thing I realized during these meetings, and in the final discussion, was my group's (5 others) readiness to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. I remained skeptical of its competitive advantage, its ability to jump start discussion and collaboration; I don't know. I wasn't simply going to write it off as the means to an end.
Web 2.0 is just a sliver in the body of recent trends of so-called communicative devices attempting to be exploited for a competitive edge; that's a given. However, we need to realize that these devices have been around for ages--they're influence is subtle , so is their innovative progress.
In a sense, there is no such thing as a new invention. Something completely different, a stand alone product. The social context of the innovation is normally kept in mind. In another sense, innovation is a fancy word for scalability. These add ons, revisions we do in terms of--oh, I don't know--records managing, hybrid vehicles, dishwashers, Web 2.0 are simply riffs on a past version. Even the automobile was originally called the horseless carriage.
Though I think they're are great things happening under the rubric of Web 2.0, it just seems false in my opinion, to consider their abilities the big thing in company success and collaboration. Yes, indeed, they're defining ways of communicating, but most still fall back on the usual face-to-face interactions of the golden years. Some of the best means of collaborating is gossip, the ticklish whisper in the ear. Watch it fester, watch it grow at the speed of wifi.
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