Expect to get more interactive in 2007

It was the year of Web 2.0 technology in 2006 and an era of social networking, which spawned interactive communities of cyber-congregators seeking to share common interests and passions.

Tens of millions of Web surfers took IT to the next level and became content creators and contributors to “blogs” and “wikis.” People exchanged ideas and laid their out their thoughts and lives to just about anyone who’d care to read it. Everyone had something to say or show and hundreds of millions wanted to hear. The Internet became truly interactive in 2006 and it seems everybody wanted to join in.

“Participative behaviour started emerging in the consumer space when people began using the Internet as a participative place,” says David Jacobson, a director of technology at PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services in Toronto. “(Video-sharing Web site) YouTube is a great example. People posted pictures and videos of themselves and invited comments and made comments. These participative places are springing up all over.”

YouTube and the online digital world of Second Life were among the most successful participative communities on the Internet and demonstrated the power of Web 2.0 technology in rallying communities of common interest. Businesses paid close attention and were astounded by the masses that could be engaged.

Market analysts like Mr. Jacobson and John Madden, a research director with Ovum Summit in Boston, believe that in 2007 many companies will look for a piece of the action and become extremely active in cultivating participative behaviour to create online communities interested in what they have to say.

“That next step is to try to take the success of social networking and bring it into the business world,” Mr. Madden says.

Other than saying and doing interesting or outlandish things, there’s really no blueprint for a business to follow in order to build its own community of participative behavior. How, for example, might a company successfully create a social network to build communities that rally around their brands or products?

Success may depend upon lack of control or more specifically a company’s willingness to stand back and allow the online community or sponsored interactive forum it rallies to grow in its own way, Madden says.

“It’s finding the balance between being the Wild West and a police state.”

And in 2007, it seems reasonable to assume that many more people will become active participants in social networking communities — and not just during their leisure time.

“We’re living in a new era,” says Jacobson. “Consumers and employees are engaging in participative behaviour during leisure time and during working hours.”

“We’re moving in a very participative and imaginative world — a world where...networking and partnering is becoming much more broadly and deeply used. It‘s enabled by these (Web 2.0) technologies.”