Apologies, my blogging has been abysmal lately. I’m back to my usual trick of over-committing on the work front and wiping out all spare hours in the day. I remain in complete admiration of those who manage to blog continuously on a daily basis. I struggle to find time to sleep sometimes…
Plenty of people have blogged about this already, but McKinsey has published a global survey on how businesses are using Web 2.0 (free registration required to view). The element that I found most interesting was exhibit 3 (on page 3) – Popular Bets. When asked the question, ‘Is your company investing in any of the follwing Web 2.0 technologies or tools?, web services came out a clear winner (80% responding ‘using or planning to use’ and just 6% responding ‘not under consideration’). Nothing else made it over 50%. The next two were collective intelligence (48% using/planning and 26% not considering) and peer-to-peer networking (47 % using/planning and 28% not considering. For the remainder of the list, that included social networking, RSS, podcasts, blogs and wikis, more respondents answered ‘not considering’ than ‘using/planning’. And bottom of the list… mash-ups. Despite their popularity on the Internet, only 21% of those businesses surveyed responded with ‘planning/using’ and over 50% are not even considering their use.
On a separate, but somewhat related theme, there is a great article describing in detail the challenges facing the media/publishing industry – Bob Garfield’s Chaos Scenario 2.0. It’s a long post but well worth the read. An interesting comment:
“…What is certain is that the Brave New World, when it emerges, will be far better for marketers than the old one. What is nearly as certain is that many existing ad agencies and some media agencies will be left behind. And the reason they will be left behind is their stubbon notion that they can somehow smoothly transition to a digital landscape…”
Makes you wonder how many of those ad agencies agree with the views expressed by many businesses in the McKinsey report – that most Web 2.0 technologies are not yet worth consideration.
The article goes on to give an example of what the Brave New World might look like:
“…consider for a moment Nike Plus, the joint project of Nike and Apple in which the iPod becomes a tool for monitoring running pace and style. The website combines utility, community, information and, of course, online sales. It is the marketing program, the CRM engine and the store. The sole function of the TV commercial… is to drive traffic to the site.”
Interesting stuff…
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