Special Report: Web 2.0 and Beyond

The tools and technologies that make up Web 2.0 may be ubiquitous, but their impact on business is still unfolding. Some companies are harnessing user feedback (via social networks) to design a new products. As telecommuting becomes more common for knowledge workers, contributing to a wiki is replacing conference room brainstorming sessions. And employees are increasingly turning to each other—not their management—for advice about their daily tasks.

“New social tools have enormous potential for reinvigorating the enterprise through faster and better communication and improved collaboration,”says Vince Casarez, vice president of product management for Enterprise 2.0 and portal products.

Find out more in Profit Online’s updated special report.

Oracle Developer Builds His Own Twitter, On The Fly
“There is a misconception that micro-blogging is just to share mundane and unimportant things. But when using this tool in the enterprise context it can be really useful. Thousands of employees have joined and see the benefits of micro-blogging," says Noel Portugal, Oracle Senior Technical Analyst for CRM On Demand Operations. “OraTweet helps users to communicate and collaborate within their teams while reducing email overload. The results have been amazing."

How to Build Your Own Enterprise 2.0
Organizations often function with knowledge silos, in which certain employees are experts with certain types of knowledge, such as the best office supply vendors. Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, and social networks can capture this unstructured interaction among the rank-and-file workforce and quickly convert it into institutional knowledge.

New Sales Productivity Bundle Uses Social CRM to Speed Sales Cycles
The bundle seamlessly integrates predictive analytics, company standards, best practices, and the “wisdom of the crowd"—the real-world experience of fellow sales reps captured with Web 2.0 tools—to increase productivity at every stage of the sales process.

Human 2.0: How Can Technology Help Us Act More Like Real People?
“Consumers are so good at detecting when people are lying to us; we know very easily when people are telling the truth and when they're not,"says Chris Brogan, co-author of Trust Agents. “For some reason, companies feel that they can speak to us in a different way than they speak to their own colleagues around the water cooler. "

Should You Worry about Your 'Whuffie' Ratings?
The word “whuffie" was originally Web 2.0 slang for the social capital people cultivated among their peers for being good Net citizens. It's now becoming a potent force for valuing commercial products as customers communicate their opinions via tweets, blogs, and other online postings, says Stephen Slade, Oracle senior director, applications and industries marketing.

‘Connected’ Employees Boost Efficiency with Social Networking
“Employees are building connections to help them be more productive and share what they know," says Gretchen Alarcon, Oracle vice president of HCM strategy. “In both cases, organizations prefer to have that information stay within the company so the discussions can benefit other employees."

Five Ideas: Social Media Mistakes
How to embrace Web 2.0 functionality—but avoid some common pitfalls.

White Paper: Web 2.0 for the Enterprise (pdf)
Bringing Web 2.0 to the enterprise is more than just the latest technology; it’s about changing the traditional business model and tapping into the creativity, intellect, and passion of every single employee.