It’s great that Web 2.0 is all around us and is used by millions of consumers on the Internet. (Note - I said consumers and not users since I believe that we are now really consumers in this huge marketing channel called the World Wide Web; more on that in a future post). But how does Web 2.0 impact the business world? How do business take advantage of Web 2.0; or the question even before that is how does Web 2.0 apply to the business world?

I found a very good post about this on WebDiva’s blog. In it she talks about how business can adopt Web 2.0. In particular she uses a term “community-based buisness”.

I believe that is the biggest change that Web 2.0 brings about for businesses. Customers, vendors, suppliers are no longer outside entities for a business. Businesses have to accept the paradigm shift that everyone now expects direct and frequent communication with the responsible person at the business for the specific issue or item they have. For example, customers expect to talk to Product Managers directly without having to deal with an Account Manager as the go-between. Suppliers will want to talk to the engineer for his/her specific technical requirements without dealing with a procurement department. Prospective employees want to hear from current employees directly and not the HR dog-n-pony show.

All of this is happening because Web 2.0 is essentially the democratization of the Internet. To adopt Web 2.0, businesses should consider doing the following:

1. Allow a technical writer to write the first draft of the product manual. But make the manual a wiki. Then allow Customer Support and customers themselves to edit and update the product manual; as users they know the product better than anyone else. The tech writer simply becomes an administrator of the manual at that point, validating the changes made to the manual and making sure the manual is well formatted and accurate.

2. My experience has been that a bad hire is far worse than an open position. Allow employees to blog openly. Yes, some of them may say things that Marketing or Management don’t want said. But put control and compliance in place for that. Prospective employees will read the blogs and have real insight in to their prospective employer and their prospective job.

3. Provide APIs for your product. Your product will be extended in ways you never imagined. Suddenly your product will have “features” it never had before; you will be able to reach new customers and drive revenue.

4. Let the voice of many dictate your product roadmap. Allow for Digg style voting of ideas, product features, or even company picnic locations! You will be able to build what a majority of your customers want, not just what the highest paying customer of the month wants.

If you are interested in learning more about our authors, you can choose from the list to the right. An avid developer and technology leader, Amol helps marketers with CRM, e-mail marketing & automation. Most recently, Amol was responsible for an open API at leading email marketing firm ExactTarget. He is currently the VP of Technology at Right On Interactive. Read more from this author

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