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What is web 2.0?

I’ve done several posts on this website that mention or reference the idea of web 2.0. I have realized that I need to define what I mean by web 2.0.

Web 2.0 was first coined by Tim O’Reilly as a way to talk about emerging web technologies (post dot-bomb bust). You can read his synopsis of evolution of the term here. Warning: there are a lot of buzzwords on this page that really are part of the larger picture but off the point – i.e. radical trust, radical decentralization, etc. Read the whole thing, and then think about each of the pieces – or read the rest of this post where I boil it down.

Web 2.0 is an idea in flux. Many have dismissed it as a Marketing Buzzword (which it is when it’s used by Marketers who don’t understand what it means – and there are a lot of them out there). Others simply feel that it is an oversimplification – a pointless pigeon-holing of trends in web development and use.

I think Tim has something (and a lot of other people agree). To me, web 2.0 is an idea about how the web is enabling the sharing of ideas and the creation of dialogues.

The important characteristics of web 2.0 technologies are:

1. Service – Websites that act like applications or services – think Writely (now Google docs and spreadsheets, CogMap, or SalesForce.com
2. Simplification – User processes that are easy to sign up for, simple to implement, and easy to invite others – think MySpace, Feedburner, or Campfire.
3. Open Data – Data that is entered once and used in a variety of forms and formats. Data easily shared – think RSS, Google maps API, and Flickr.
4. Sharing – Individual experience and data populates communities that influence individual experience. A cycle of information – think Digg, the Wikipedia, and del.icio.us.

So that’s the 20,000 foot overview. What does it mean to you?

It means that there are more and more tools out in the great web beyond that will allow you to leverage those four ideas on your own website, with your ideas, using your data. Blogs, wikis, RSS, and social bookmarking are all easy to setup – but how do you integrate them with your current business process? with your website? with your in-house web team? That’s the crux of the web design and web development processes. Now that you understand the high level overview, you can talk to your web development team about taking things to the next level.

Live in the real world

I was reading an article posted on an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) website called The Value of Offline Publicity (Warning: that site is so busy with information, buttons, ads, and banners you might become disoriented). I enjoyed the article for one main reason – it was not your usual SEO topic. The author talks about your website being an extension of you or your company and thus what you do can have profound impact on your site.

He has a point.

I felt his methods concentrated on making your business into a ‘cult of personality’ where the business is an extension of the person (his article makes the assumption that most sites are one person operations – and in the world of knowledge blogging that is the truth). I’ll admit that I think his ideas are very effective – I have promotional strategies very similar to several of his bullet points – but I think that his six tips are just the tip of the iceberg. What he is talking about with a couple examples is a whole paradigm of thinking. It’s the idea that your PR and marketing is all tied together. Each piece of your marketing feeds each other piece.

Too often businesses cut their website and online strategy off from the real world. In SEO circles this is especially true, SEO tends to gets really geeky – it likes to live completely in the head. Marketing needs to be a whole body – what you do online effects the real world and vice versa – and with a little planning you can nudge things in the right direction and sometimes get the perfect storm – buzz synergy that feeds on itself.

I always tell clients – what you talk about to your clients in person, you need to talk about online. What you do in your business you need to talk about online. What you are doing online you need to talk up to your clients. If you don’t want to do this – chances are something isn’t going well in the business or you are trying to be something you are not either in reality or virtual reality.

What good is a brochure without a web address on it? or a website that never talks about print publications? The idea is to have one voice – just because you cross into a different medium doesn’t mean your voice changes. How you say things will change – what you are saying won’t. If it does you have a dangerous disconnect that will disorient your customers.

Now by all means follow his advice – become famous – just remember that all your agents (print, pr, tv, radio, web) need to talk about what you are famous for – and they need to talk up each other as well.

Anyone can Blog

I went to a presentation about blogging a couple months ago and I heard this statement, “Anyone can Blog – it’s easy!” This instantly caught the audience’s complete attention. Blogging’s easy? Blogging is hot! and blogging is the latest, greatest thing in online marketing! get yours today! Okay – the feel in the room wasn’t that frenzied, I’ll admit, but the spark of it was there.

I wish I agreed.

Blogging is hot. Its a great online marketing tool. If you are reading this then my point is proven. Blogging is easy -kind of. Blogging is easy to set up, its easy to get started, but it is really hard to do correctly, and even harder to maintain.

A blog isn’t any different than a website. A blog is an idea that is executed by various different types of code, products, vendors, etc. When you have a blog you have the idea of consistent portable content that people can respond to right now – that’s it. It’s not Wordpress, its not Livejournal, its not Moveable Type – those are all mechanisms for executing your idea.

Those mechanisms are really easy to set up but harder to integrate into your traditional website effectively.

Most blogs have no value and fail faster than a small business. Why? They don’t have a plan.

Blogs needs regular content. They need a focused theme. The need a schedule for writers to post to.

Without focus, your business blog becomes just rambling and you don’t want to ramble to your clients to you? Your client doesn’t need to know about your dog, or your issues with in-laws, or how hard it is for you to deal with them. Blogs can be dangerous territory.

Without regular posting you blog withers and dies. There is no reason to revisit a blog whose content never changes – it’s like the business newsletter that always has the same three headlines – it becomes junk mail.

If you think a blog fits creatively into your business or your businesses’ marketing strategy then write up a mission statement, a growth plan, and a schedule of posting. Then sit down with your team – even if it is only you – and brainstorm the first dozen posts. Only then is it time to go look into WordPress or LiveJournal and get your blog set up.

Editing

Okay, I must confess, I don’t edit my posts for typos. If you’ve been reading me for any length of time, you may have noticed. Sorry if this fact impedes your reading…but I am much better off waiting for my wife, Erin, to do it. She’s a proofer at heart, but she’s pretty busy, so she’ll probably only edit me once every couple weeks or so.

So, please note that as of now, everything here is shiny and clean. But I make no claims on future posts until she’s had a look. (Oh, and she proofs all my client sites before launch, by the way.) A big thank you to Erin for all her time and effort.

Becoming Part of the Dialogue

I finally joined Technorati and FeedBurner today.

Basic Do-It-Yourself Tutorial

I’ve completed the first draft of my build your own website basics.

All the people out there who want to try their hand at web development can now be pointed in the right direction.

I’m also going to create a web 2.0 technologies primer as a companion piece.

Learn to build your own site

Today I had someone ask me how much it would cost for me to teach them how to build and update a website. I quoted them my hourly rate and they thanked me and told me they would consider it and call back.

They won’t call back, and that is probably a good thing – my providing private tutoring is a waste of money for them and a waste of time for me. First, because there is a very good chance they will have no affinity for web design or development. Second, because all the information you need to know in order to build a basic website is easily available, on the web. Someone who would enjoy and do well at building a site, would probably already know that at this stage.

If I could help someone realize their goals by teaching them to code, then I’m all for it. But if it turns into a long and expensive lesson in frustration for them – then that’s revenue I don’t want.

I’m a great teacher – I have lots of patience and can quickly assess a student’s ability level and tailor my teaching accordingly. The fact is that web development (even basic HTML) makes most people’s brains numb – it can be tedious and boring and there is ALWAYS more to learn and better ways to do things.

I love building websites and web applications. I love the constant learning and pushing boundaries. I love building applications that make people’s lives easier and I even like making web pages render just right, which can take hours of troubleshooting.

I’m going to gather some materials together for the hard core do-it-yourselfers out there, so at least they can poke around themselves.

Here, take the wheel, you can drive

I used to be the webmaster for a large corporation. I was in charge of creating websites and web applications. I worked with internal departments to get their message and data published to the external website or the intranet. The company that I worked for had 50+ departments and over 3000 employees. Keeping up with the information and data of that many departmental clients took a lot of juggling.

Very quickly I learned that my job’s true purpose was to help people help themselves. I created tools and processes that allowed clients to control their information and manage their web presence themselves. Many clients were hungry for this, embraced it, and pushed the boundaries of what we did. I loved this. Some greeted me on our first meeting with “Oh I am so glad you are here, our area of the intranet is so out of date, I’m glad that you can finally get to it”. I would excitedly tell them – you don’t need me, you can do it yourselves. They would become confused and mumble something about it not being their job and they wanted me to update the content. I would agree to start them out on the right foot and ask them for what they wanted changed and would get a perplexed look.

This is an important difference of perception that highlights a danger for many small business owners.

My clients at the large corporation, who wanted me to do all their updates, didn’t really want me to do their updates. They wanted me to relieve them of the responsibility of managing their portion of the website.

I have found many clients (my own and others) who let their designer take control of the content and strategy portion of their website redesign. They are relieved that help is available and leave everything up to the professional. Which is fine if you are working with a professional who will bring an array of choices to you for important decisions – who will have a dialogue with you. Unfortunately, sometimes this attitude switches the goal from creating a website that reflects a business (that is unique) to just creating a website.

The point is — ultimately you control your website. You are responsible for its content and for updating it. You are responsible for the message it sends to your customers. You don’t have to build the site, or even figure out the best way to build the site – you just have to be involved and stay engaged with the process. Resist just being a passenger and navigate what you know best – what makes your business unlike any other.

Stay focused on your goals

I had the good fortune to talk before a group of small business owners last night. My presentation was about how a website should fit into a businesses’ overall marketing strategy. They were a very receptive audience.

I talked about what a website is (a collection of interconnected documents) and what it isn’t (IM, email, RSS, a listing on your local chamber of commerce website) and I went on to give examples of businesses and how each business used their website differently (based on their overall strategy of how they wanted to interact with customers).

Not every business needs a website – whether you need a website or not depends on how you want to generate your customers and how you want to dialogue with them. There are also as many ways to define a website as there are to define a business. A restaurant may only need a simple brochure site with the essential basics – brand look and feel, phone, fax, address, directions, and menu. A realtor’s site will need to go further to generate leads – a clear call to action, a subscription form, feedback process (automatic emails), etc.

The difference between an effective site (and thus a website that costs no more than it should) and a website that is a useless money sink is simple – planning. Every website should have a mini strategic business plan to focus it (and its owners) on what it needs to do.

What I tried to leave my fellow business owners with were the following ideas:

• Have a goal for your website – and do only that – focus on it – and your website will cost less and be more effective.
• You don’t have to know how to do something – you only have to know what you want.
• Nothing is free – even if there isn’t a dollar cost there is a cost in time and emotional dollars.
• A good website acts like a garden – it never stops needing attention – plan on this.
• Stay excited – if you aren’t passionate about what you are doing, no one else will be excited either. Make sure your website reflects why you do what you do.