Web 2.0 is already producing leaders – Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Google – but for many organisations, coping with its implications remains a challenge because for the most part, Web 2.0 has been flying underneath the corporate radar.

In an example of Web 2.0 technology reaping real-world benefits, a major airline’s flight crew has chosen to use Facebook to manage their schedules, as did management consultancy Capgemini for the co-ordination of a new starters’ “onboarding” programme.

By November of 2007, Facebook had acquired 50 million subscribers, with many organisational personnel already signed up, including 17,000 employees from Microsoft, 20,000 from IBM, and 13,000 from Accenture.

Open APIs

One of the key tactics in the battle between Facebook, MySpace and Google has been the opening up their application program interfaces (APIs) so that anyone can develop for them. The opportunity to capitalise on a fast-growing user base is tempting companies that have been looking for ways to get involved with social networking but are not keen on developing their own networks.

Social networking – which sits alongside blogs, wikis, mashups and RSS as the key tools that define Web 2.0 – can make such an impact, the failure to consider the impact of social enhancement technology on the performance of the enterprise is a big mistake.

So it is no longer enough for IT directors to dismiss Web 2.0 as simply the next round of web-development technologies, although some still do.