In the case of the Web 2.0 Watermill, there are primarily four areas where technology is beginning to facilitate a vastly improved Internet: knowledge collection, knowledge discovery, knowledge building, and knowledge sharing.
- Ken Yarmosh, Why Web 2.0 Matters to your Business
Traditional collaborative and communication efforts in the business environment are soon to be numbered. Web 2.0 facilitates a decentralized yet more effective means for businesses to both interact with customers and employees.
Technologies likes blogs and wikis have already begun to prove their value as knowledge collection tools within and without of the organization. Blogs enable real conversation, thus allowing companies gain valuable feedback from customers, learning what they want, instead of trying to sell them what they don’t need.
Wikis simplify team collaboration and knowledge collection. The headaches associated with tracking file versions or passing hard copies of memos and documents around the office will soon be alleviated. In lieu of emailing the latest version of a particular document, group members can work disjointly via the web. With the click of a button, edits can be applied and tracked. No more worries about working off the wrong copy of a document.
While blogs and wikis represent two different communication paradigms, they both assist in knowledge collection efforts. In my next installment of this series, we will learn how these and other types of Web 2.0 technologies promote knowledge discovery.
