The following online tools, services and ideas are commonly referred to as belonging to the Web 2.0 movement:

 

Blogs or Web Logs are online diaries published on the web and often subscribed to through RSS. The audience can often participate in a Blog by publishing comments. Enterprises of all types from law firms to software developers are using Blogs as a conversation channel with their clients and customers. The enterprise blog is generally seen as a value add channel to engage and inform the customer, position the enterprise's level of expertise, reinforce brand messages and collect customer feedback.

 

Wikis are systems that facilitate collaborative publishing of articles. One of the most well known Wikis is Wikipedia. Wikis are gaining wide spread use as the core of a corporate intranet, facilitating a highly collaborative space for employees to share knowledge and achieve greater collective productivity than through traditional intranet communication.

 

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a web based feed or channel of content. RSS readers allow people to subscribe to channels that may contain news articles, blogs, podcasts, links and other forms of information. Enterprises can use RSS feeds to distribute content to customers as well as internally to employees.

 

Podcasts are audio or video files often belonging to a series produced by a particular author. They are often distributed using RSS feeds and are commonly consumed in applications like iTunes or transfered to portable devices. Podcasts allow enterprises to deliver messages in a highly engaging and value adding manner, and in a format that can be consumed away from the PC. 

 

Widgets are small applications which bring web services and content out of the browser and onto the desktop. Widgets allow enterprises to deliver relevant services to a client in a highly controlled and branded environment. By offering a relevant and useful widget, a company may be able to foster consistent, frequent interaction between a customer and their brand. 

 

Social Networks are systems that allow users to create profiles and share those profiles with others, potentially developing links with others based on interests, knowledge, skills and common links. Common social networking services include Fackbook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Enterprises are exploring both leveraging existing social networking platforms such as Facebook, as well as implementing social networking tools into their own systems both internally and externally.

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