How to... Marketing for Small Business

Small Business Management for Online Business

Web Development, Internet Marketing, Social Networks

Nicolae Sfetcu

Published by MultiMedia Publishing

Copyright 2018 Nicolae Sfetcu

Published by MultiMedia Publishing, https://www.telework.ro/en/publishing/

ISBN: 978-606-033-059-2, DOI: 10.58679/TW86436

Source: Telework under CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Text license CC BY-SA 3.0

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Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is the evolution of the Web towards greater simplicity (requiring no technical knowledge or computer for users) and interactivity (allowing everyone, individually or collectively, to contribute, share and collaborate in various forms). The term Web 2.0 means all technical, features and uses of the World Wide Web that follow the original form of the web, especially interfaces that allow users with little technical knowledge to adopt new functionality of the web. Thus, users contribute to the exchange of information and can interact (share, exchange, etc.) simply, with both the content and structure of the pages, but also between them, creating this waz the social web. The user is using the tools at its disposal, as an active person on the canvas.

The term Web 2.0 used by Dale Dougherty in 2003, broadcast by Tim O’Reilly in 2004 and consolidated in 2005 with the position paper What Is Web 2.0, was imposed from 2007.

The term 2.0 is now used as a generic term to apply the concept of Web 2.0 to other application domains.

Web 2.0 facilitates interaction between users, crowdsourcing and the creation of rudimentary social networks, which may serve content and exploiting network effects, with or without actual visual and interactive rendering of Web pages. In this sense, Web 2.0 sites act more as points of presence, or web portals, focusing on the user rather than on traditional websites. The evolution of the media allowing to consult the websites, their different formats, refocuses in 2008 on the content rather than on the aspect approach.

The new Web 2.0 templates  try to make a graph care, effects, while remaining compatible with the variety of media. In Web 2.0 the Internet becomes an actor in feeding the sites content, such as blogs or wikis collaboratively, with even very rigorous citizen science devices.

2.0 websites allow users to do more than withdraw the information. By increasing what was already possible with Web 1.0, they provide users with new interfaces and new software. Users can now provide information to Web 2.0 sites and have control over some of them.

Web 2.0 technologies

The infrastructure of the Web 2.0 is complex and changing in nature, but it always includes:

server software,

content syndication,

messaging protocols,

navigation standards

various client applications (plug-ins, or grafts, non-standards are generally avoided).

These complementary approaches provide Web 2.0 storage capacities, creation and dissemination, as well as much higher than what was previously expected websites serendipity.

A site could be considered as part of a Web 2.0 approach if uses in a special way the following techniques:

CSS, XHTML markup semantically valid and microformats;

technology-rich applications such as Ajax;

RSS / Atom syndication and aggregation of content;

categorization labeling;

appropriate use of the URL;

REST or XML web services.

Web 2.0 is defined by its content, the shift to Web 2.0 therefore has nothing to do with the evolution of communication standards such as the transition to IPv6.

Rich Internet Application

Since the turn of the century, the rich Internet application techniques such as AJAX have improved the user experience of applications using a web browser. A web application using AJAX can exchange information between the client and the server to update the contents of a web page without refreshing the entire page using the browser. The "Geospatial Web" is one of the emerging forms of geographic recomposition of the entries of knowledge through ICTs, democratization of GPS and sometimes crowdsourcing applied to the citizen mapping, who gave OpenStreetMap for ex., and in other scales the NASA World Wind, and Google Earth, and Microsoft Live Local in 3D with environmental, social and economic still poorly understood impacts.

RSS

The first important move towards Web 2.0 was content syndication, using standardized protocols that allow users to make use of data from one site in another context, from another website to a browser plugin,

 or even a separate desktop application. These protocols include RSS, RDF (as in RSS 1.1) and Atom. All are based on XML. Specialized protocols such as FOAF and XFN (both for social networking) extend the functionality of the site and allow users to interact in a decentralized manner.

This bottom-up trend that many of these protocols become de facto standards rather than standards.

Labelling

Tags or labels or keywords improve semantic search, more heuristic and therefore presented in the form of a tag cloud.

These labels are small text expressions that describe a concept, are attached to a concept and used for searching content (typical examples: a forum, a blog, a blog directory) and, more importantly, interconnect things together. A bit like a neural network: the more a label is used, the more the concept attached to the label is present and it takes more weight. More labels are present and more the attached concepts are interconnected.

The markers can include meta-elements (ie metadata).

Social tagging, folksonomy

The label provides a hierarchical prior sorting of sought items. The order of items is either the number of references or a satisfaction rating given by readers. In the latter case, the weighting scheme is defined by a human factor (the social side) which highlights some interesting data or articles in the mass of information. This is typically the case of social bookmarking.

Web protocols

Web communication protocols are a key component of the Web 2.0 infrastructure. Two main approaches are:

REST (REpresentational State Transfer) indicates a way to exchange and manipulate data by simply using the HTTP GET, POST, PUT and DELETE verbs.

SOAP, which involves posting to a server XML queries with a set of instructions to be executed.

In both cases, access to the services is defined by an application programming interface (API). Often, the interface is specific to the server. However, standardized interfaces to web programming (for example, to post on a blog) emerge. Most, but not all, communication with web services involves a transaction as XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

There is also WSDL (Web Services Description Language), a standard for the publication of Web Services interfaces.

Economic issues

After the gains due to the new economy, Web 2.0 has enabled the rapid enrichment of a few companies, as was the case during the first broadcast of the Web. And Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire at age 23.

However, some were worried about the risk of developing a 2.0 bubble similar to the first internet bubble. The blog TechCrunch, first blog of the A list, even made an article announcing the death of Web 2.0, the headstone marked 2004-2008 (which is also a valuable reference in the difficult task of dating the birth of the Web 2.0). But contrary to what was held for the first Internet bubble, this time the internet activities are not behind the 2008 crisis.

1% rule in Internet culture

(Graphic showing the proportion of lurkers, contributors and creators. Source: Life of Riley, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1percentrule.svg, Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)

In cyberspace, the assumption of 1%, also called rule or law of 1%, or 90-9-1 principle, reflects the fact that participation and earnings are highly uneven in an online community.

Thus, on the Internet, less than 1% of the members contribute proactive, 9% participates occasionally and 90% of observers never contribute.

(Distribution of computers following the 1% rule. Source: Public domain)

In 2007, Akil N. Awan, the Royal Holloway (University of London), shows that 87% of discussion forum users have never contributed, 13% have posted at least once, 5% have posted more than 50 times, and only 1% has posted 500 times or more.

In 2006, Ben McConnell counted 1-2% of contributors from all site visitors to Wikipedia: In June 2005, Jimmy Wales observed that 50% of all contributions to Wikipedia were made by 0.7% and 1.8 contributors % of contributors had written more than 72% of all articles.

In November 2007, there were less than one percent of contributors elected to the french Wikipedia: 166 administrators on 23 000 registered users.

In publishing, 90% of the revenues of media companies would be generated by 10% of the titles. And 1% of the highest paid authors by publishers receive a percentage two to three times higher than that of others (which is often on the order of 8%).

Gini coefficient

Gini coefficient shows that on average 10% of the population owns 90% of the wealth or earns 90% of its revenues. To clarify, 0,5% of the world's population now owns 35% of the portfolio and about 8% of them owns 80%. In short, inequality of income and wealth distribution is close to the 1-9-90 rule.

The Gini coefficient is higher for closed professional communities (0,71 for B2B) than for B2C communities with only 0,67.

Result

The hypothesis of 90-9-1 results in option to integrate the emerging minority in power, or to degenerate society.

Reputation management

The online reputation, sometimes called web reputation, or digital reputation, is the reputation, the common opinion (information, advice, discussions, comments, rumors.

..) of a web entity (brand, person, legal (business) or physical (individual), real (represented by a name or pseudonym) or imaginary). It corresponds to the identity of the brand or person associated with the perception that people have of it.

This digital reputation, which can be a differentiating factor and have a competitive advantage in the case of trademarks, is shaped by the development of positive elements and the surveillance of negative elements. The online reputation management may also designate digital reputation, through a global strategy and using specific tools (activity led to new jobs) for the sustainability of digital identity.

Key drivers of online reputation

The online reputation of a company or a person is formed more or less permanently, according to several different sources:

Consumers

Anonymous, fans or communities: consumers are real actors in e-business reputation and potential transmitters of messages. "What makes influential brands, is not their size but their community." - Chuck Byrne.

Institutional sites

They combine all the websites of ministries, local authorities and research organizations. These websites inspire confidence in users, as they are regulated and regulatory sites. The information has a real impact to users and will be taken by all, as official information, so true. However, this advantage can be a double-edged sword, because if information recorded is false or wrong, it has been widely distributed and its removal will be difficult or impossible.

The major media sites

These are the sites of television, radio, written press and cinemas. These actors have a global vision of information. They write about everything and everybody. An article will be beneficial benevolent, but a negative item will be harmful and few remedies exist for reasons of independence and freedom of the press or legal reasons. Only the drowning technique can be useful: the idea is to flood of positive news to drive section of the first pages of search engines.

Forums

They represent real communication channels for professional online reputation. It is important to be listed on the websites of its industry. These forums allow you to have a good image of the company.

Blogs

Little influence on their creations, some blogs have become very powerful in terms of fame and even compete with the major media sites, which take some of their dispatches. In addition, they can have a great influence on the market, the popularity and image of a company.

Social networks

They allow users to recover or be affinity through various platforms. Initially news sites, they gradually changed into real places for exchanges of all kinds: business, entertainment, games..

.. These social network sites have become powerful tools of influence, engagement and pressure.

News aggregators

These are services that offer news press releases online and continuously updated (Google News, Bing News.

..). Some offer users the possibility to feed themselves the site by their articles and comment and rate articles in the international press.

Free comments on social networking sites

These are various platforms such as blogs, photo sharing sites and video.

.. that offer users the opportunity to respond and comment on the content.

Internally

Employees and managers are the best ambassadors for the company and the community. Some companies choose to set up a watch from within their business through blogs to respond to consumers, maintain communication with them and manage potential problems.

Partners

Represented by unions, associations or institutions, they allow to defend, manage the interests of consumers or making comparative testing of products and services.

Video or photo platforms

These platforms, such as YouTube or Dailymotion, allow you to share videos worldwide. They also act as agents of e-reputation. A video can be duplicated and posted on any website or blog and realize a buzz. The user then becomes subconsciously a brand ambassador. Conversely, a video of a dissatisfied user can destroy in seconds, the credibility of a company and damage its image.

Wikis

Wikis are collaborative platforms, where it is possible to exchange and provide information through articles and discussions sorted chronologically (appearing newest to oldest). The best known is Wikipedia. These platforms are very popular among viewers because anyone can decorate articles and information changes rapidly. The information is, however, not always reliable, since authentication of the author is not always known.

Marketing of online reputation

The issue of trust can arise when it comes to completing a transaction online, with a particular (selling a used object, apartment rental) or a business (e-commerce).

According to some sociologists, digital trust depends primarily on the level of sociability concerning the actors. A user will trust an online service where the