Finally, enterprise-class tools and methods are emerging to create informal online networks. Already, business users are collaborating to deliver better decisions.

Tech book publisher Tim O’Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 in 2003. In the process, he identified a common thread that connects many seemingly separate things such as blogs, wikis, and mashups.

The term Web 2.0 refers to social software that enables people to interact and share information in new ways. It is the interactivity of Web 2.0 services that distinguishes the services from those of Web 1.0. If Web 1.0 was a one-way broadcast, then Web 2.0 is two-way conversation. Web 2.0 provides a way for users to add their own input directly and instantly to what someone else has posted on the Web. (See Figure 1.) This form of persistent interaction converts what used to be a one-to-one or a one-to-many information flow into a many-to-many information flow.

Web 2.0 is associated with familiar public online services such as blogs, wikis, social networking, bookmarking, and mashups. Web 2.0 describes interactive social networking platforms such as MySpace, Second Life, and Facebook, as well as standalone services such as Blogger, Wikipedia, Bloglines, Google Maps, Digg, and Yahoo! Pipes.

Web 2.0 and agility

Agile management demands the kind of decision-making support that Web 2.0 offers. With Web 2.0, decision makers can use virtual-presence technologies to facilitate instant access to networks of subject-matter experts. Additionally, smart enterprise search can locate the knowledge trails those networks of experts leave in blogs, wikis, and mashups.

In the process, the art of business communication is being redefined. Informal channels within and among organizations have always been important, and Web 2.0 is rapidly becoming the communications backbone for those informal channels.