Web 2.0: Is Your Website Living Up to its Full Potential? Maybe you have and maybe you haven't heard talk about Web 2.0. It's being called the next generation of the internet and involves more interactivity, more tools to connect people, and more functionality for a website. Using Web 2.0 for business purposes now has its own name, Enterprise 2.0. The key is to do some research, play with the tools, look at what other businesses are doing with these tools, and then creatively think about how these tools can enhance your business. Can you improve your customer service, get more traffic to your website, become an expert in your field, increase your productivity, or enhance your current services? Whatever your business, there is probably a tool that can help. This article will help you get started with the research. |
|
:::RSS Feeds::: |
::: CMS, Wikis, and PMS::: |
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds are one of the best tools to get visitors to your website. It's basically coding that enables one website to share articles, blogs, vlogs,podcasts, and videocasts with another website. There are two types of RSS feeds, incoming and outgoing. I'll discuss incoming feeds first. Content, content, content! It's all about content. To get visitors to your site and to get high rankings in the search engines, you've got to have content, and lots of it, on your website. One of the easiest ways to do this is to find RSS feeds others are producing and feed them to your website. Think about what kind of content is related to your business and what kinds of information your clients are looking for. Whether you sell products or services, there is information that can be useful to others. First, y ou have to find the RSS feeds. One of the best directories to use is http://www.technorati.com. A google search for your topic and the words RSS will also turn up feeds. Once you find the feeds, you need to code your website to show the feeds on your pages. You can use a hosted application, news feeder, or create an application on the server where your website currently resides. A list of tools is at the end of this article. Outgoing feeds, meaning you write (articles and blogs), say (podcasts), or show (videocasts and vlogs) information on a topic that is related to your business or useful to your clients. Then you create the RSS code that others can use to put your feed on their website. The last step is to advertise your feed using directories so others can find you. You can also directly ask website owners to use your feeds. Ask yourself "who would like this infomation", then start "selling" it to them. |
Content Management Systems (CMS) allow you to edit the content of your website, and let others help you create the content for your website. Most CMS make the creation of blogs, RSS feeds, articles, etc. simple. CMS can simply allow you to edit your website, while the user does not know the website is dynamic, rather than static. Web Haven created this site, http://redknightstn2.com, for a motorcycle club. It has an administrative log in page to reach the backend content. Members can edit pages and add photos and pdfs without knowing html. You'll notice that the url says index.php file in its name. Whenever you see that on a website, you will know that the page you are viewing is generated freshly each time there is a request for it from a database residing on that server. Wikis allow users to create documents and edit them in a collaborative process. Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org/, is the most well-known wiki. It is a dictionary in which users can add entries or edit other's entries. Aboutus.org is a business wiki. Most likely your website is already listed there. Anyone can register and edit the information about your business, so it might be a good idea to check it to see if anyone has posted something about you.Wiki means fast in Hawaiian. Project management software (PMS) is not considered a Web 2.0 application, but I include it here because the software can reside on your server and allow others to access and use it. There are numerous other internet applications not mentioned in this article. The best way to find out what might enhance your business is to experiment with them. |
:::RSS Feeds::: General information on Enterprise 2.0 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060605_424102.htm |
|