How to Add Some “Web 2.0” to Your Website

I read a ClickZ article by Sean Carton today that explores the definition of “Web 2.0”. He ultimately concludes there is no one definition, but rather six elements that define the change in how we all now think about and use the Web. For grins, I added comments (in blue font) to explain the ContactAtOnce! angle on each.

• Web 2.0 is about data abstraction. All those Web 2.0 functions people love to talk about, such as tagging, sharing, XML, open APIs (define), and mashups, only became possible because we now understand how to free information from containers. Though the Web credo "information wants to be free" has been around for a while, we've only recently been able to make it happen. Pulling information out of proprietary containers allows you to do pretty much whatever you want with it, whether driving collaborative sites, interfacing with mobile devices, or something else.
  
  Historically communication services were viewed as monolithic (e.g. the phone system, Skype) or an integrated feature of a larger corporate system (e.g. chat as a CRM feature, call recording as a call center feature). But web-based communication services are different. They can be easily added to existing websites on the front end, and easily integrated with existing data marts and reporting applications on the back end. They need not be built and maintained internally – they can be accessed via the Internet and offered by software-as-a-service companies like ContactAtOnce!. Data abstraction makes it all possible.

• Web 2.0 takes broadband and Moore's Law for granted. Sites like YouTube and Google Docs & Spreadsheets wouldn't be possible in a non-broadband world populated by powerful computers. All Web 2.0's multimedia features, especially video, start with the assumption bandwidth is basically free and readily accessible.
  
  The VoIP and Video features of ContactAtOnce! are perfect examples.

• Web 2.0 is about connections. Connections between people, between sites, between the Web and mobile worlds, between buyers and sellers. Web 2.0 includes all of them. At its heart, the new Web is about moving from a one-to-many publishing model to a many-to-many one.
  
  Connections are the essence of ContactAtOnce! – connecting shoppers with representatives of the businesses with products or services that they are shopping for – representatives that are tickled to have the opportunity to engage a prospective customer in a live conversation because they know live conversations are more likely to lead to sales than static “contact-us forms”. And, the connections are always initiated by the shopper.

• The Web 2.0 revolution puts people first. All the tagging, social content, social networking, blogging, and virtual communities people point to as examples of Web 2.0 come out of this. It's perhaps the most widely recognized aspect of what's changing. But putting people first is more than just connecting them or allowing them to post content. It's also understanding people use the Web. The needs of the user (not the programmer, marketing director, or information architect) come first.
  
  People shopping on the Internet for products and services that must ultimately be purchased offline (such as cars, homes, apartments, attorney services, home services, etc.) need to get questions answered. It is part of the research and buying process. Contact-us forms never met that need. Picking up the phone does, at least when someone knowledgeable is available to answer – but some shoppers might prefer other means of communication such as instant messaging. They key then to putting people first is to enable live communications so that they can ask their questions and, moreover, to go the extra mile in offering alternative communication channels and in ensuring the highest probability of a knowledgeable answer by monitoring and projecting a company’s availability. All tenets of ContactAtOnce!.

• Web 2.0 is about allowing people to manipulate data, not just retrieve data. The AJAX revolution isn't that it lets you make zippy interfaces that kind of look like real desktop applications in a browser. It's that it does away with the old Web 1.0 model of request page/get page/view page technology all of us were used to. Contrast the old MapQuest "point and zoom and pan with buttons" interface with the revolutionary interface Google Maps deploys. All of a sudden, we're actually in there with the data, moving it around, playing with it, and interacting with it in real time.
  
  Not much to comment on around this element. Perhaps the inspiration for some new features…

• Web 2.0 is about doing stuff on the Web that can't done in any other medium. Functionalities that have generated so much Web 2.0 hype are all things that wouldn't be possible without the Internet. Period. Much of Web 1.0 tried to shoehorn old media models into the new technology, often with bad or even disastrous results. All the bad thinking of the past decade or so revolved around the misperception that the Web is "like medium X, only different." The Web isn't TV with clicking. It isn't print with the ability to link and embed multimedia content. Podcasting isn't radio you can download.
  
  Phone numbers = old media. Contact-us forms = Web 1.0. ContactAtOnce! = Web 2.0.
  The obvious conclusion of this exercise is that ContactAtOnce! clearly “adds some Web 2.0” to the websites on which it is deployed.