All Web 2.0 sites that allow you to post your interesting and unique content on them should be exploited to maximum if you want to drive huge traffic and backlinks to your site. All reputable Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, Blogger or Hubpages also reward you for your efforts by sharing some of their income with you depending on their payment and earning rules. So, creating different Web 2.0 pages will both promote your own site and earn you some money mostly through Google Adsense and Amazon network.
Most of the newbie webmasters still wonder what the benefits of posting on web 2.0 sites are and why they have to waste their articles and time to complete the process. Well, if you do some search you will quickly realize that the page rank of the main page of all popular web 2.0 sites is pretty high and there are many pluses although the new page that you will create will be PR0. The high PR of the domain will definitely transfer some link juice and authority to your site.
If you create your web 2.0 properties using unique and high-quality content, then the actual PR of these pages can be boosted pretty easy just with one basic backlink campaign – some top bookmarks, social signals and blog comments. For example, now it’s relatively hard to post your content on Squidoo due to their horrible spam filter which gets activated for nothing and you have to edit your page several times before successfully publishing, but the benefits that you will gain are really valuable. You get both contextual backlinks to your desired sites but also fantastic traffic because of the huge online authority and millions visits on Squidoo.
This situation presents on almost all famous and worth web 2.0 sites, but if you put the needed efforts you will get rewarded for your hard work and patience. It’s always recommended to create everything manually without the help of any tool. You can search and find software that can post your articles on all top web 2.0 sites, but you have to use highly spun articles that are sometimes unreadable. Well, just for the sake of more backlinks you can use them, but you will be in a better position if you avoid such tools or services. The bad content won’t lead traffic to your site and your pages can get deleted easily if they get flagged for spamming or inappropriate content.
All web 2.0 sites will help you to promote your products and get it out there with huge success if everything is done correctly. Such sites can drive massive amount of traffic if your products, services and tips are interesting and informative for the right auditory of the site. The quality branding of your company or site should not be underestimated when it’s up to web 2.0 site. So, who don’t want a piece from the web 2.0 benefits?
1. Tools are simple to provide andmaintain. One of the challenges many organizations experience is maintaining an increasingly complex IT infrastructure. Even smaller organizations still have to provide their employees with e-mail, office productivity tools, and all the other capabilities required by the modern knowledge worker. Those applications require specialized, highly skilled people to provide, operate, and maintain them. For most organizations, something as simple as moving to the most current version of software is not so simple; ask your IT staff what the process is for upgrading to a new version of Microsoft Exchange. Web 2.0 tools are much simpler to provide and require no maintenance from the perspective of the organization.
2. They have little downtime. The next benefit is a bit counterintuitive and may not be applicable for the largest, most sophisticated organizations. But for the rest, uptime is a major issue. Most Web 2.0 tools simply don’t have downtime. Gmail has been in the news lately because it has experienced several outages; then again, it provides more than 7 GB of storage each to some 50 million users worldwide. Even taking those outages into account, Google has provided better than 99.9% uptime over the past 12 months, averaging 10 to 15 minutes downtime per month. That compares pretty favorably to all but the most mature enterprises.
3. They are low-cost. The previous two points lead to a third, which is perhaps the most important benefit of Web 2.0 tools. These tools are a fraction of the cost to provide and even lower cost to maintain. Granted, they generally include fewer capabilities, but some organizations see that as an additional benefit. Consider a small organization without the budget or technical expertise to implement a massively resilient e-mail system with automated failover and multiple stage-gate deployment capabilities. The cost to implement Web 2.0-based e-mail capabilities is significantly lower, and it requires almost no technical expertise. There are no upgrades, hot fixes, or service packs to apply, and no need to migrate – in fact, Web 2.0 tools have begun to turn the entire concept of software versioning on its head.
Almost all organizations today, regardless of their industry, sector, or size, rely on office productivity suites to get their work done. More than 90% of those organizations use a version of Microsoft Office. The average cost of Office 2007 to an organization is significantly higher, even for upgrades, than the cost of Google Apps, Thinkfree, Zoho, or any of a number of other competitors. These competitors offer much less functionality than Office, but this is not necessarily a bad thing for many users. They are generally compatible with basic Office files. And many of them are free – which is even harder to beat.
4. It takes little effort to make them productive. Another benefit of Web 2.0 is the ability to fail. What this means is that when an organization selects an enterprise software application, the cost and the effort to implement it generally demand that it be used by everyone in the organization, even when it comes with a steep learning curve and even when it isn’t necessarily the right tool for every usage. Web 2.0 tools cost very little and are generally easy enough to provide and use that the time required to be productive with them is short. And if the tool turns out to be the wrong one, it is relatively easy to move on to another tool.
One of the reasons Web 2.0 has found its way into organizations is because of users’ frustrations with IT and the difficulty they have encountered in getting access to the tools they need. So far, most organizations haven’t deployed wikis because the CEO read about them in a business magazine, or the CIO developed a detailed set of requirements and did a year-long analysis and feasibility study. Instead, wikis infiltrate organizations because users have a need for the collaboration capabilities and can deploy one as easily as signing up for a free pbwiki or Wikispaces account.
Organizations are also increasingly running into the “shadow IT department” – users that use these types of tools at home and are comfortable enough with them to be able to provide them without, and even in spite of, the organization’s IT department. And they are not that easy to stop. At last count, there are more than 250 Twitter-like tools, at least 40 web-based document creation and sharing tools, and more than 10,000 other Web 2.0- based tools. IT departments that try to completely prevent the usage of these tools face a rapidly moving target.
5. They facilitate collaboration. Finally, one of the most significant benefits of using Web 2.0 tools is how well they facilitate collaboration. Collaborating through e-mail and attachments is the norm for many organizations. Everyone has e-mailed to a group of people a message with an attachment for review. Most recipients review the attachment and send comments back; some send their comments in a message; some mark up the electronic document with change tracking; and others simply make changes to the document before sending it back. The sender receives all the comments, boils them down into the necessary changes, and sends them back out for another review cycle – and then gets additional comments from the first draft. This process is broken for most organizations.
From document-sharing tools like Scribd or Google Docs, to the wiki that was used to write this article,Web 2.0 tools include inherent collaboration capabilities. Many of them also offer networking and communication capabilities, so users know the status of a shared document: who is editing it and what changes were made when. This is particularly important when collaboration is required across a geographically dispersed organization.
Managing the Tools
So, given that users will use these tools, that organizations will find it increasingly difficult to block them, and that many organizations are looking at them as a legitimate opportunity to control costs and improve collaboration, how do organizations manage them effectively?
First, while users know they shouldn’t talk about their internal issues and challenges in public, they may not know that blogs, wikis, social networking, and other Web 2.0-type tools default to public access. Users also need to know that even if they don’t use their organization’s name, other people may recognize them and consider them to be publishing on their organization’s behalf.
Second, many of the tools have begun to mature. As they move from“bleeding edge” into mainstream usage, organizations are increasingly looking for the same types of functionality as from their other applications: identity integration, security, records retention and disposition, and the ability to place and enforce legal holds. And the market is responding. There are enterprise-focused versions of almost every major class of Web 2.0 application, including wikis, blogs, web conferencing and document sharing, and even social networking. Many of these can be implemented behind the organization’s firewall and integrated into the identity infrastructure such as Active Directory. They generally use open protocols and data structures (often XML-based), so organizations should have minimal difficulty exporting from one solution to another or applying retention controls and policies.
The key consideration for these tools, as with any other tools, is to do due diligence for the particular application. Review the service level agreement to see how realistic it is, how enforceable it is, and what happens if something happens. Select a vendor with a track record – and call its reference accounts. Integrate the tool into existing backup and disaster recovery protocols; many of these applications are web interfaces to database back ends, and database maintenance is mature technology.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that there are benefits to using these tools: They tend to be less expensive than their mainstream competitors; they are easier to implement; and if they don’t meet the organization’s needs, there may be another provider with similar capabilities ready to ink a deal.
There are risks to using these tools, but they are not insurmountable. Not every tool will be right for every organization or situation, but many will be useful for particular purposes. Organizations need to be smart about how to use the tools to maximum benefit while maintaining effective control over their usage. And many organizations will want to consider enterprise versions of these tools and do their due diligence before committing.
Records managers must be full partners in the process of selecting and evaluating these services and tools. They will need to adapt their principles to suit this new environment. They cannot afford to bury their heads in the sand in hopes that this is a passing fad.
Most of the newbie webmasters still wonder what the benefits of posting on web 2.0 sites are and why they have to waste their articles and time to complete the process. Well, if you do some search you will quickly realize that the page rank of the main page of all popular web 2.0 sites is pretty high and there are many pluses although the new page that you will create will be PR0. The high PR of the domain will definitely transfer some link juice and authority to your site.
If you create your web 2.0 properties using unique and high-quality content, then the actual PR of these pages can be boosted pretty easy just with one basic backlink campaign – some top bookmarks, social signals and blog comments. For example, now it’s relatively hard to post your content on Squidoo due to their horrible spam filter which gets activated for nothing and you have to edit your page several times before successfully publishing, but the benefits that you will gain are really valuable. You get both contextual backlinks to your desired sites but also fantastic traffic because of the huge online authority and millions visits on Squidoo.
This situation presents on almost all famous and worth web 2.0 sites, but if you put the needed efforts you will get rewarded for your hard work and patience. It’s always recommended to create everything manually without the help of any tool. You can search and find software that can post your articles on all top web 2.0 sites, but you have to use highly spun articles that are sometimes unreadable. Well, just for the sake of more backlinks you can use them, but you will be in a better position if you avoid such tools or services. The bad content won’t lead traffic to your site and your pages can get deleted easily if they get flagged for spamming or inappropriate content.
All web 2.0 sites will help you to promote your products and get it out there with huge success if everything is done correctly. Such sites can drive massive amount of traffic if your products, services and tips are interesting and informative for the right auditory of the site. The quality branding of your company or site should not be underestimated when it’s up to web 2.0 site. So, who don’t want a piece from the web 2.0 benefits?
1. Tools are simple to provide andmaintain. One of the challenges many organizations experience is maintaining an increasingly complex IT infrastructure. Even smaller organizations still have to provide their employees with e-mail, office productivity tools, and all the other capabilities required by the modern knowledge worker. Those applications require specialized, highly skilled people to provide, operate, and maintain them. For most organizations, something as simple as moving to the most current version of software is not so simple; ask your IT staff what the process is for upgrading to a new version of Microsoft Exchange. Web 2.0 tools are much simpler to provide and require no maintenance from the perspective of the organization.
2. They have little downtime. The next benefit is a bit counterintuitive and may not be applicable for the largest, most sophisticated organizations. But for the rest, uptime is a major issue. Most Web 2.0 tools simply don’t have downtime. Gmail has been in the news lately because it has experienced several outages; then again, it provides more than 7 GB of storage each to some 50 million users worldwide. Even taking those outages into account, Google has provided better than 99.9% uptime over the past 12 months, averaging 10 to 15 minutes downtime per month. That compares pretty favorably to all but the most mature enterprises.
3. They are low-cost. The previous two points lead to a third, which is perhaps the most important benefit of Web 2.0 tools. These tools are a fraction of the cost to provide and even lower cost to maintain. Granted, they generally include fewer capabilities, but some organizations see that as an additional benefit. Consider a small organization without the budget or technical expertise to implement a massively resilient e-mail system with automated failover and multiple stage-gate deployment capabilities. The cost to implement Web 2.0-based e-mail capabilities is significantly lower, and it requires almost no technical expertise. There are no upgrades, hot fixes, or service packs to apply, and no need to migrate – in fact, Web 2.0 tools have begun to turn the entire concept of software versioning on its head.
Almost all organizations today, regardless of their industry, sector, or size, rely on office productivity suites to get their work done. More than 90% of those organizations use a version of Microsoft Office. The average cost of Office 2007 to an organization is significantly higher, even for upgrades, than the cost of Google Apps, Thinkfree, Zoho, or any of a number of other competitors. These competitors offer much less functionality than Office, but this is not necessarily a bad thing for many users. They are generally compatible with basic Office files. And many of them are free – which is even harder to beat.
4. It takes little effort to make them productive. Another benefit of Web 2.0 is the ability to fail. What this means is that when an organization selects an enterprise software application, the cost and the effort to implement it generally demand that it be used by everyone in the organization, even when it comes with a steep learning curve and even when it isn’t necessarily the right tool for every usage. Web 2.0 tools cost very little and are generally easy enough to provide and use that the time required to be productive with them is short. And if the tool turns out to be the wrong one, it is relatively easy to move on to another tool.
One of the reasons Web 2.0 has found its way into organizations is because of users’ frustrations with IT and the difficulty they have encountered in getting access to the tools they need. So far, most organizations haven’t deployed wikis because the CEO read about them in a business magazine, or the CIO developed a detailed set of requirements and did a year-long analysis and feasibility study. Instead, wikis infiltrate organizations because users have a need for the collaboration capabilities and can deploy one as easily as signing up for a free pbwiki or Wikispaces account.
Organizations are also increasingly running into the “shadow IT department” – users that use these types of tools at home and are comfortable enough with them to be able to provide them without, and even in spite of, the organization’s IT department. And they are not that easy to stop. At last count, there are more than 250 Twitter-like tools, at least 40 web-based document creation and sharing tools, and more than 10,000 other Web 2.0- based tools. IT departments that try to completely prevent the usage of these tools face a rapidly moving target.
5. They facilitate collaboration. Finally, one of the most significant benefits of using Web 2.0 tools is how well they facilitate collaboration. Collaborating through e-mail and attachments is the norm for many organizations. Everyone has e-mailed to a group of people a message with an attachment for review. Most recipients review the attachment and send comments back; some send their comments in a message; some mark up the electronic document with change tracking; and others simply make changes to the document before sending it back. The sender receives all the comments, boils them down into the necessary changes, and sends them back out for another review cycle – and then gets additional comments from the first draft. This process is broken for most organizations.
From document-sharing tools like Scribd or Google Docs, to the wiki that was used to write this article,Web 2.0 tools include inherent collaboration capabilities. Many of them also offer networking and communication capabilities, so users know the status of a shared document: who is editing it and what changes were made when. This is particularly important when collaboration is required across a geographically dispersed organization.
Managing the Tools
So, given that users will use these tools, that organizations will find it increasingly difficult to block them, and that many organizations are looking at them as a legitimate opportunity to control costs and improve collaboration, how do organizations manage them effectively?
First, while users know they shouldn’t talk about their internal issues and challenges in public, they may not know that blogs, wikis, social networking, and other Web 2.0-type tools default to public access. Users also need to know that even if they don’t use their organization’s name, other people may recognize them and consider them to be publishing on their organization’s behalf.
Second, many of the tools have begun to mature. As they move from“bleeding edge” into mainstream usage, organizations are increasingly looking for the same types of functionality as from their other applications: identity integration, security, records retention and disposition, and the ability to place and enforce legal holds. And the market is responding. There are enterprise-focused versions of almost every major class of Web 2.0 application, including wikis, blogs, web conferencing and document sharing, and even social networking. Many of these can be implemented behind the organization’s firewall and integrated into the identity infrastructure such as Active Directory. They generally use open protocols and data structures (often XML-based), so organizations should have minimal difficulty exporting from one solution to another or applying retention controls and policies.
The key consideration for these tools, as with any other tools, is to do due diligence for the particular application. Review the service level agreement to see how realistic it is, how enforceable it is, and what happens if something happens. Select a vendor with a track record – and call its reference accounts. Integrate the tool into existing backup and disaster recovery protocols; many of these applications are web interfaces to database back ends, and database maintenance is mature technology.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that there are benefits to using these tools: They tend to be less expensive than their mainstream competitors; they are easier to implement; and if they don’t meet the organization’s needs, there may be another provider with similar capabilities ready to ink a deal.
There are risks to using these tools, but they are not insurmountable. Not every tool will be right for every organization or situation, but many will be useful for particular purposes. Organizations need to be smart about how to use the tools to maximum benefit while maintaining effective control over their usage. And many organizations will want to consider enterprise versions of these tools and do their due diligence before committing.
Records managers must be full partners in the process of selecting and evaluating these services and tools. They will need to adapt their principles to suit this new environment. They cannot afford to bury their heads in the sand in hopes that this is a passing fad.
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