This forecast had me do a double-take: Consumer use of the Internet will outstrip business use sometime in the next couple months, and rack up a 58 percent growth rate in the next three years. Here's why that's an important inflection point.
With the possible exception of the first few years of telephony, business has always led consumer use of technology in every category: long-distance minutes, computers purchased, Web pages created. But according to a recent Morgan Stanley report that draws on projections from Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), the volume of consumer IP traffic will overtake business users this year at about 6 million terabytes (that's a monthly figure). By 2011, the forecast puts consumer usage at more than 15 million TB, while business users will just be topping 10 million TB.
It would be easy and maybe even accurate to view this forecast as misleading; when teens and 20-somethings start shoving all those YouTube clips around and engaging in online social networking, well, what do you expect? Will these demographic groups start buying more gigabit Ethernet routers to handle ecommerce and Internet connectivity? Unlikely. Will complex software suites sold by Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), SAP AG (NYSE/Frankfurt: SAP), and others somehow morph to accommodate "friends" lists and newly posted comments? Maybe.
What these numbers and forecasts tell me is that enterprises are pretty much ignoring Web 2.0. Near as I can tell, none of the technologies or applications associated with Web 2.0 have made much of an impact on businesses or enterprise networking. Business blogs tend to be thinly veiled marketing -- and pretty widely avoided as a result. Wikis have had mixed success, at best, with businesses. And I doubt that many of the Fortune 500 would crumple without YouTube-like clips on their sites.
Well known consumer brands -- Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, Nike, for example -- might use social networking to draw customers to their sites and cement those relationships and loyalties. Do I really want to swap stories with other consumers of my same breakfast cereal? Does it make me more likely to buy that brand next time, or consider other products from the same manufacturer?
Just to be clear: No, no, and no. But I'm not exactly a model consumer or part of a desired demographic either.
In the same Morgan Stanley report, one IT exec puts it this way: "It used to be that you used enterprise technology because you wanted uptime, security, and speed," said Douglas Merrill, CIO of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). "None of those things are as good in enterprise software anymore [as they are in some consumer software]." Some 15 years ago, enterprise technology was higher quality than consumer technology, he added. "That's not true anymore."
Enterprise technology certainly isn't as innovative as it was 15 years ago, or even five. For most enterprises, the reality of Web 2.0 is multi-faceted security risks (viruses, hackers, data theft), ROI pressures that come with any new expenditure, and new regulatory requirements for data privacy and archiving. None of that exactly encourages IT or the enterprises they work for to experiment or pioneer. But it does seem to prompt more users to try their own hand with unauthorized servers, wireless access points, and/or applications.
Are enterprises really going to cede all this to Facebook , iTunes, and Slashdot? I'd love to hear from anyone with anecdotal or actual evidence that Web 2.0 is making a difference for enterprises and somehow contributing to its bottom line.
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Wikis and blogs are perhaps the most notable web2.0 offerings that come to mind when thinking of content management and syndication, while aggregation, indexing and categorizing of the syndicated content is near invisible when paired with multimedia in surroundings of web2.0. Many still question the value a social networks for businesses as it has yet to be proven otherwise. Enterprise and social search included in a facebook style user interface almost seems to be an inevitable transition awaiting to emerge within the workplace in my opinion. The following is my attempt to illustrate why...did I forget to mention something along the lines of comments and ratings?
Let's start with sharing of social bookmarks as well as features similar to Internet Evolution'sFacebook Experiement which undoubtedly allows for vast sharing of the latest feeds and user discovered content per se that can be further streamlined to deliver relevant data or mashups to subscribing groups and/or users within the enterprise. This alone has massive potential of bringing the absolute right content at the right time
Using the New.Facebook's user interface as an example, and without delving into detailed corners within this comment, it seems to be in plain view how an enterprise could utilize social networking features to benefit the overall productivity and efficiency...exponentially in the short-long run. Corporate portal frameworks can be established to provide much of the following functionality.
Associates and Collegues- (in comparison to Facebook 'Friends')
The inside and outside sales teams could leverage the "people you may know feature" that pins their compounding network of resourceful 'connections' that could very well 'single out' sales leads(as well as manage relations)..an easy transition with the 'commonly' seen import contacts from Outlook method today. Perhaps this also makes room for corporations to subscribe or purchase enterprise licensing of LinkedIn or integrate with hosted solutions such as onesource and bullhorn to extend the richness of leveraging useful data...socially.
The start of your work day
The home page for the user of the enterprise portal can be customized for the user by the user with details visible such as e-mails/notifications/alerts/requests/project agenda updates/daily tasks and also loaded with mashups specific for the role of the user within the enterprise. Visualize a business version of the Facebook home page toda!
Global alerts such as the twitter like "What am I doing now" feature can be utilized to syndicate pertinent and time sensitive information as mentioned by Todd "Turbo" Watson in his August 6th blog entry. Alerts can be customized to be delivered to groups established by the user. Notifications can also be categorized by a wide array of 'group' entries such as from the executive team, human resources..essentially the organizational hierarchy of the enterprise, similar to distribution lists of company wide email in use today. Requests - again can be categorized with visual icons ordered by importance and date as well as provide links to tasks, properties and attributes associated with project(s).
More bells and whistles
The mini applications that are utilized by Facebook can be used to fill in the gaps for additional functionality that may not have been available or present during the initial deployment of the portal. The mini apps can range from functionality needs of specific industries as law firms and real estate service providers (due to each having it's own unique set of requirements) onto office football pools that can be installed by users wanting to participate. (a good use of wasting time? much better than the pretend 'fish throwing and catching' motivation videos for creating enterprise synergy of yesteryears that I HAD to watch in my opinion). All of the mini-apps can have access privileges set by the administrator limiting access to specified members, groups and even roles within the enterprise.
Structure, security and proper execution is obviously a focal point in implementing the fruits of web 2.0 for the enterprise as previously mentioned by David Vellante in this blog. I currently do not have actual evidence that Web 2.0 is making a difference for enterprises and somehow contributing to its bottom line nor have I had the privilege/benefit of attending major web2.0 conferences to date, however I am certain that a wide implementation of social networks for the enterprise will take place before Walmart offers consumer banking services* Not necessarily in the form I attempted to illustrate as it can be delivered by future versions of Outlook for the enterprise, a variation of Sales Force offerings, or Facebook may deliver a 'BusinessBook' application geared toward enterprise use. Web2.0 absolutely lays the foundation for the obvious and inevitable transition and integration with mobile solutions which includes the forth coming location based and RFID services for the enterprise. (my strong opinion/prediction based on WalMart's RFID mandate that just has to have had some influence :-)
R.I.P. Business 2.0 Magazine. You guys coined a phrase before its time!
While I know social networking provides opportunities for marketers to reach / target / tailor campaigns to groups of people - I wasn't surprised to hear many companies at the recent Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco complain that they've built social networks - but are not having much success getting people to use these niche commercially-motivated communities.
The vanity / self-expression motive on facebook, myspace, etc. doesn't seem to catch fire in biz communities. (surprise surprise)
I agree with your conclusion about Web 2.0 adoption, but I would like to see what's behind the Cisco/Morgan Stanley numbers. Intuitively, I can buy into consumers using the public Internet more, but, on the other hand, with the amount of IP bandwidth availed by businesses vs. consumers, it doesn't make sense. How could a group of individuals using DSL, cable, and dial-up outpace businesses using DS3s and more? I understand that the multiples of consumers vs. businesses, but still.
Maybe Cisco is pulling out all VPN, all company-official, and transaction-based, secure transmissions? For instance, if I access my bank account on-line, is that a consumer use or a business use? The transmission is 2-way. Checking my account is a consumer activity, but in the old days if I had called an 800 number, that would have been business traffic.
It seems like a slippery thing to measure, similar to cellular service. That is an example where consumer use has outpaced business use, assuming you look at who is billed. Of course, much cell-phone service is business-oriented, billed to consumers, and then reimbursed by businesses, making it very difficult to come up with an accurate breakdown.
I think that the Web 2.0 revolution is just beginning. What marketers need to see before they go gung ho into using it is a proven track record. Prove to the marketers that it is beneficial to use the service and you will have them coming in herds.
Social networks are a very valuable resource, Look at Myspace. There you have a guy who had an idea to bring not only the United States together but the whole world. It's crazy but now when I am watching TV if you look at the end of their commercials the web address for the company has been replaced with a myspace profile link in many cases.
Web 2.0 will become more and more used. Just like when Bill Gates imagined a desktop for every home and every desk. Now they have PC, MAC, Linux and the list goes on and on. Pretty soon everyone will be using their cell phones to do 95% of their work if they don't already.
Thanks, Murugan -- but I'm reminded of a much-quoted complaint among marketers that 50 percent of all advertising money is wasted; and the bigger problem is you don't know which 50 percent.
I suppose it might be easier to track that within the confines of affinity groups on social networks, but I still think enterprises are remarkably pokey where innovation's concerned or in adopting some of the technologies that make the consumer side of the Internet more compelling, and even fun.
Many of these Web 2.0 sites are gathering grounds for people.For businesses this means potential customers
amassed in one location and are easily accessible.I would imagine that businesses will look to
these gathering sites as a direct way to market their products or services.
It’s kind of like driving down the highway and you see advertisements
on bill boards.They are there but not
really invasive on people.Instead of
emailing or phone calling potential customers, they can set up digital bill
boards on digital grounds were people gather such as these Web 2.0 sites in
hopes of some of them taking notice of their advertisements.
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