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Web 2.0 - Revolution or Evolution?

Although still in its infancy, the World Wide Web has become an essential if not intricate part of our daily lives. As it continues to develop and evolve, almost relentlessly, through innovation and new technologies, what impact can these changes have on e-commerce?

In the short term it's unlikely to have any noticeable effect, but for businesses that plan to be around for the long haul, it could be a case of sink or swim. Setting up a stall on the embankment of this vast torrent of progress may be fine for now, but unless businesses are prepared to dive in and go with the flow, they will quickly become overwhelmed by the sheer power of the undeniable web transformation now in evidence.

The question is what kind of technologies should e-commerce embrace and apply in order to move in the same direction as the mainstream? According to some influential developers and marketers, the answer is undoubtedly Web 2.0 technologies.

The term Web 2.0 was first expressed by O'Reilly Media back in 2004, which would suggest the conception of a second generation of web applications and services. And although some technology experts would argue that the basic components of Web 2.0 have been present since the creation of the World Wide Web, there are many who now recognize the demarcation.

To many people the definition of a Web 2.0 application appears to be somewhat ambiguous, but to the successful Internet marketer it is very clear. If your website visitors can submit content (text, images, videos), submit links to content, make comments, participate in discussions and vote one way or another, all or any of which will ultimately affect the amount of traffic that input will generate, then it's Web 2.0.

Basically, adopting a Web 2.0 formula for any website will increase traffic and get your website ranked higher in the search engines. It's a win-win situation. Some examples of Web 2.0 applications, which e-commerce website owners should seriously consider are forums, surveys, feedback forms (for testimonials, reviews etc), blogs and RSS. The main points to consider are "user participation" and "social networking". These are the buzz words associated with Web 2.0, which is made available through user-friendly browser-based applications.

The best examples of highly successful Web 2.0 websites, where almost all the content is generated by users are, "Myspace" - page rank 8, "Youtube" - page rank 8, "Wikipedia" - page rank 8 and "eBay" - page rank 9.