Web 2.0 Advantages and Disadvantages

Published Date: 02 Mar 2018

Abstract:

Web 2.0 can be described as different types of web applications which allow people to publish knowledge that they have created and also allow to share with other people as well as facilitating interoperability from any web application. This technology allows people to create, share, collaborate & communicate. Web 2.0 does not require any technical skills to participate, This feature allows users to participate and use applications widely.

For the last few years web 2.0 technologies are showing their clear impact on our world. Mainly these sites occupy lead role in terms of user density and also click density. The density of web 2.0 users is also getting increased day by day. So the means of communication between people and organizations changed from general print ads, television, radio, static websites etc to Web 2.0 applications. As we can target specific type of category, web 2.0 is the best way to communicate with people. So we can collaborate the whole process of communication like meetings, promotions, class rooms, support etc with web 2.0 applications. So organizations are trying to leverage on new web 2.0 technologies like Facebook, Secondlife, Youtube etc to improve their standards and also to get things done in fast manner.

I have done research on 'how organizations leverage on new technologies to collaborate in every aspect of growth. I mainly focused on advertisement point of view as well as marketing point of view. I analyzed many web applications like Wikipedia, Slideshare, Youtube, Secondlife, facebook.

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Introduction:

Background:

        There are several organizations which are mainly operated by the people and for the people. Universities stand first in that position when compared to other fields like industries, factories etc. Here the world has been changing dramatically in such a way that people are seeking support from electronic world for their needs like to build new relationship, to gain knowledge and so on. Now internet has become the basic need for all people and it grabbed a reasonable amount of time from people. So universities now a days are planning to shift themselves partially or fully towards electronic world and collect attention of people to them selves for knowledge sharing.

We are now in the age of using Web 2.0 technology where any one can communicate their opinions to any one. They really help us in communicating things to world in just fraction of seconds.

        'Digital natives' in the above diagram means people with digital knowledge background. People who possess knowledge about digital applications like mobiles, internet, digital communication etc. Information is being shared between people who are aware of internet. This is already in the use from the start of internet and internet is used by people who know internet only.

'Internet Economics' means economy that moves on internet through different applications. Internet economics is not very new for us and now a days businesses are completely dependant on internet and most of the large scale trading are been done using internet in digital format only, which can carry some benefits. This scenario helps in good in the faster growth of business.

'Read / Write Web' means the common platform where we can read the information and at the same time we can write our own information. In general internet scenario we can either read or write like viewing a website or uploading a website. In classrooms also we can either find learning things while supervisor demonstrates. We can not demonstrate while we learn in such a way that we can add amendments immediately. But using this Read/write technology we can add amendments as per our thinking.

Combination of digital natives, Internet economics and Read/Write web will lead to 'Web 2.0' technology. The best example for this is Ebay where we can sell our products (internet economics) by adding them into catalog and people can review them instantly(read/write web) and the site will be used by people who know internet in their computer or smart phones(digital natives)

Web 2.0 can easily generate huge knowledgebase within fraction of seconds. That Knowledgebase is the combination of people, technology and process. Huge knowledgebase is being produced using the Read / Write web technology, with Internet Economics process by millions of people who are hands together. The huge database thus created will be helpful for millions of people again. Web 2.0 is a relationship between Many People -to-Many People. In this pattern it is quite common that content will get changed very frequently and also many visitors follow frequently updated content only. In that situation no one wants to look at websites which are updated by admin once for a week. People requirement for huge knowledgebase demanded for the development of web 2.0 applications and as usage of those applications have increased, people started searching for business within those applications.

An example for that is Wikipedia. Wikipedia will be getting updated very frequently by millions of volunteers and also is getting updated. This is how we are using read / write technology to collaborate.

1.2 : Background and brief history of Web 2.0 in Universities :

Web 2.0 in universities: Even though web 2.0 revolution has started few years back, web 2.0 implementation is not 100% done for 100% of universities. Universities are trying different technologies to leverage their businesses. Universities need to walk more steps ahead defeating the odds like un-implementation.

Issues in Web 2.0 implementation in Universities:

• Rejection of change (like using new technology for teaching) is playing key role in the process of slow implementation of web 2.0 technology. Students, Lecturers have their fear of using new technology because of un-implementation only.
• Another factor for slow adoption of Web 2.0 system is no motivational force, which actually occurs when no body implements well and lack of exact correct information about things. People are much aware of Web 1.0 technology only and they are fear using Web 2.0, this is also a factor for non-implementation of Web 2.0 technology.
• People are confident in using old type of teaching and learning assuming that it is the correct process and web 2.0 will not suit for teaching and learning. That created impression that Web 2.0 is not suitable for teaching.
• Copyrighted problems are another problem of using web 2.0 technology. We can not digitalize things because of copyrighted issues. As web 2.0 stands for openness and networks, there is no security for copyrights. Universities are facing problem using web 2.0 in that aspect.
• Fear of culture aversion to innovation: Large institutions can not implement web 2.0 as a whole for the entire organization because of several factors like bureaucracy, governance, procedures for decision-making. So it needs a lot of creativity and high motivation for the implementation of web 2.0 application for institutional cause.

Barriers to the use of Web 2.0 technology:

• Fear of facing criticism: Managers in the top level who are decision makers are fear about facing criticism about the procedure of web 2.0 technology. The main cause for that is they can't experiment with people changing traditional model of teaching and learning.
• Fear of Security: As we all know it Web 2.0 is meant for openness and any one can create profiles with any name(which are available) and they can scrap anything that they want. So as fresher for Web 2.0 technology, managers can't risk keeping security aspect away from mind.

Suppose if any university starts using web 2.0 in any social community like 'secondlife' Security is main aspect there where we can signup with any lecturer username (if he/she have not taken yet) and may guide students wrongly. These type of instances will fear managers not to implement things.

Elements for a strategy of web 2.0 adoption in universities:

The adoption of a web 2.0 approach to learning in universities is a complex process confronting important technological, managerial and human barriers. For these reasons the design of a set of objectives and a strategy accepted and promoted by the managers, especially those in charge of knowledge management, is absolutely needed. This first step requires in many cases radical cultural changes for people used to work and make decisions in a different scenario.

1. Learning from Experiences: Since we are in the stage of experimenting with Web 2.0. We can not expect tremendous results from this but we can find a path to move through this system very fast.
2. Following leads in inner organizations: When we find inner organizations, some people will be more interested in using new technology and some will not. So people who have interest in Web 2.0 learn faster than others and they can show the path to make others learn about new technology. This will allow system to implement new technology.
3. Learning from industry: when we consider similar institutions, only few institutions will take initiation and they will adopt new technologies which will help them in gaining fast experiences than others. So organizations which did not perform any experiments on web 2.0 can learn things from already implemented organizations which is a quicker way for learning things with out failure.

• Open access and use of contents : The core advantage of Web 2.0 is openness and heavy availability of content to anyone. This allows creativity for the users and easy for finding things available with tagging. The information should be search engine friendly and this content should be easy to catch in search engines also.
• Design of institution as platform for knowledge sharing: This is main aspect in Web 2.0 technology. Institutions should allow users to post knowledge related information from both internal and external users of the organization platform. This allows users to show creativity and helps in finding new solutions for problems. This will also lower cost for innovation. The external development of web 2.0 tools would reduce considerably the costs of IT infrastructure and software. This will also help in fastening knowledge sharing.

References:

Freire, Juan (2008). Universities and Web 2.0: Institutional challenges. eLearning Papers Nº 8. ISSN: 1887-1542

The adoption of a web 2.0 approach to learning in universities is a complex process confronting important technological, managerial and human barriers, and an adaptive strategy is needed that could be designed from previous experiences of educational, research and business organizations. This strategy could include the following lines:

• Learning from previous and on-going experiences, before developing a priori technology and protocols inside the institutions. Both lead users inside the organization and other organizations adopting web 2.0 tools and paradigms should be especially useful.
• Opening the access and use of contents. Web 2.0 is especially useful and creative when knowledge is digitized, modular and allowed to be used and distributed in a flexible way.
• Designing organizations as open platforms for knowledge creation and sharing, both among members of the internal community and with the participation of external users.

References:

1. Freire, Juan (2008). Universities and Web 2.0: Institutional challenges. eLearning Papers Nº 8. ISSN: 1887-1542
2. Paul Anderson (Feb 2007) : JISC Technology and Standards Watch
3. John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler : Minds of Fire - open education, the long tail, web 2.0

Web 2.0 Uses in universities:

Research Questions:

1. What is the significance of web 2.0 in universities?
2. How universities are getting benefited from Web 2.0 technologies?
3. How many universities are using web 2.0 to collaborate their classrooms? What are those?
4. How many universities are using Facebook to communicate with students?
5. How can use twitter to collaborate notice board?
6. Can we use Youtube for video demonstrations?
7. How universities are using Secondlife to conduct virtual classrooms?
8. Is virtual classroom really beneficial for the student to learn?
9. How blogs are helpful for universities?
10. What is the use of Slideshare in the process of learning?
11. Can we use web 2.0 applications in mobiles or PDAs?
12. How can we leverage advertising programs to web 2.0?

Summary:

• Chapter 1 presents the basic introduction and background of Web 2.0 technologies in which I explained briefly about Web 2.0. Research questions are also phrases in this chapter. This chapter will give better idea of web 2.0 technologies.
• Chapter 2 demonstrates about literature review in which the concept of Web 2.0 is explained clearly. I presented brief introduction about Facebook, Blogger, Youtube and other web 2.0 applications. Organizational uses of Computer mediated environments is an sub chapter included in the chaper 2
• Chapter 3 gives an idea of different research methodologies where I presented different methods to do a research study. I also included survey with a Web 2.0 user and I resolved solution for my research study.
• Chapter 4 demonstrates findings like how web 2.0 is getting used by organizations.
• I concluded my research with chapter 5 with my opinions about Web 2.0 in Organizations.

Literature Review:

World before Web 2.0 :

Before 2003, the world looked to be to be semi connected. We used to check static sites and emails on the internet. Even though we had emails and websites, the world looked to be semi connected. Assuming if we had started a business and update in our website, it used to get days to reach people about update as there was no proper network between people and the only connectivity between them is emails. In that situation, suppose if we want updated content, then it may take 1-2 weeks to get indexed by search engines and used to appear after a week time in search engines. There was no question of possibility to collaborate their businesses in those days. That was the problem of huge organizations and we can estimate small and middle level organizations about that.

In that situation people used to depend on website administrators only for the site updates. In that the system is manual in such a way that, whole system used to depend on single or multiple persons for updating. No one knows when site will get updated and they need to check back for intimations.

WEB 2.0 :

Introduction :

Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet—a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects. (O'Reilly Radar)

Web 2.0 has been described as an 'attitude not a technology' by Davis (2005). We can call Web 2.0 as social revolution or social networking in which people will form a network of own interests and get intimations about them within seconds. In this way of social networking, any information could get pass with out delay.

According to O'Reilly, Paul Graham and Dion HinchCliffe, who are WEB 2.0 creators.

1. Web 2.0 is here and it is big;
2. "Architecture of Participation", "the Network Effect (social network)", and "Harnessing the collective intelligence" are fundamentally new and different from web 1.0;
3. Web 2.0 is more about a paradigm shift in how people use the web, less about new technology. "Web 2.0" is not based on a technology shift, but rather a usage Paradigm shift

There are also people who argue Web 2.0 is functionally similar to Web 1.0 and there is have no difference. But we should agree the fact that people accepted Web 2.0 very well and are using in their daily routine.

Fundamental Difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is before 2003 we used to operate internet for websites and emails. The websites were been modified by the owners itself and people will not get any intimations for the modifications performed on that website. People must run an application in their client system to access anything. (like ms outlook for emails). That made things complex and people got bored of their non-participation.

Revolution of social networking sites totally changed the way that people think. We need not install software in client system to access applications. Those applications will get installed in the server itself and can be accessible in any system using browser. Web 2.0 has changed entire world of communication and people started blogging and other networking , People who got waxed with non participation started social networking in their own way. Web 2.0 technologies like Youtube, myspace, facebook, flicker, blogs, RSS, Second life have came into limelight, People started creating their indentity in several web 2.0 websites and started growing their network with the help of communities. Web 2.0 has enlarged in such a way that major companies like google, Microsoft, yahoo started buying Web 2.0 sites like youtube, myspace for millions. Core advantage in collaborating businesses using Web 2.0 is 'a single line of publishing will blast information to thousands of people which lead to quick updating and ultimately reaches goal of targeting people for sales as well as support'.

Limitations with Web 1.0 Technology:

Web 1.0 was meant for the purpose of viewing HTML documents and file sharing (FTP). That was not pretty good for some important functionality like

1. Interactivity: This is very important for web applications especially for dynamic web applications. We may need auto refresh content grabbed from database which will help people in getting updated content within seconds. As this type of interactivity is very important for applications and Web 1.0 got failed in this feature which supports click and page refresh only.
2. One Way communication : Web 1.0 supports only single way communication as phone call system in such a way that client has to pull data from server if he wants and server wont push any data automatically with out client interaction. That might be good methodology and it did not suited us in viewing automated content. This type of communication has inspired for the development of AJAX, which is one of Web 2.0 technologies. Using AJAX we can initiate two way communication which actually works as client pull as well as server push.
3. Lack of Data Reliability: Actually in business applications we need to send and get data safely from server to client and vice versa. There should not occur lose of packets which sends data from source to destination. So using web 1.0 technology there are some limitations which could not guarantee safe journey of packets from source to destination.
4. Mobile browsing non supportability: Applications developed using Web 1.0 could not be loaded in mobile browsers (which is called WAP browsing). This is another limitation for Web 1.0 technology. Even though we need to go more ahead than Web 2.0 to utilize WAP services effectively, we have achieved a bit in case of Web 2.0 technology. (Using Web 2.0 technology also we could not achieve things like video upload etc, but we can view websites)
5. Lack of support for Rich user experience : Web 1.0 will not support rich user experience and we need toi refresh every time to check the content. Say if we want to signup for email account, it used to take 5 minutes at least (as we did used to check username will server every time). Now if we want to signup it will not take more than a minute.

Benefits of Web 2.0 Technology:

Web 2.0 technologies is widely used in peer to peer networks, social networks, web blogs, forums etc. More benefits of Web 2.0 technologies are

1. Acceleration: It accelerates the performance of web applications and could transfer data very fast from server to client system and the data will be very much reliable.
2. Good User Interaction: Web 2.0 supports great user interaction in such a way that user could navigate through options very easily.
3. Simple and great way of publicizing things: This could be achieved using Web 2.0 technology with the help of social networks, blogs, forums, Second life.
4. Cheap way of advertising things: Generally if we want to advertise things on electronic media, it may cost several dollars, but when we use Web 2.0 technologies like web blogs, social networks we can reach thousands of people with just a dollar cost.
5. Several solutions for single problem: We can find several solutions for single problem posted, which got posted in networking sites, web blogs etc. I tried learning ASP.NET few months back in that situation I got struck about initiation into programming. Then I used facebook, orkut communities for solution where I got at least 30 responses in 24 hours time from people who are anonymous to me.
6. Easy way to collaborate business: Using Web 2.0 technology we can collaborate businesses which leads to finding new solutions. People can find solutions for the real life problems using virtual ways.
7. Leveraging Business: We can leverage our business using these of web 2.0 tools like facebook, orkut, Second life. Main thing that leverages business will be instant messaging like RSS feeds. One of my friends got benefited in stock market because of RSS news where he gets every second updated news about listed companies in NASDAQ.
8. Easy Online Presence: This is the revolution which is been showing impact in the development of web 2.0 technology. We are enjoying benefits of Web 2.0 technology in such a way that we can purchase things online using web hops such as ebay showcase etc.

Is Web 2.0 an end for web development? :

Absolutely 'NO' Web 2.0 is not an end for Web development techniques. We do have many other things to be implemented on portable devices such as mobiles. They can be implemented in advanced technology of Web 2.0 only and we are assuming that to be Web 3.0 technology, let us wait until we got things more sophisticated. Mean while we can research for more Web 2.0 applications while will help businesses to collaborate them.

Computer Mediated Environment (CMEs):

What is CME:

Different environment that are set about by computers is called computer mediated environments. In other words, if two computers are connected each other through a means of computer then it can be called as Computer Mediated Environment. General internet applications like emails, chats, social networks are examples for CMEs. Suppose a person in India is in contact with a person in United Kingdom through computers, then it can be called as Computer Mediated Environment. Here the media is computer so we are calling as computer mediated environment. Basic internet communication environment using applications like emails, chats can also be categorized into Computer Mediated Environment.

Reference :

• Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 15, 2005) 82-91

Impact of Web 2.0 on CMEs :

Every system which are connected through systems are termed to be computer mediated environment. Also server to personal computer environment can also be stated as CME and websites can be categorized into that. With the adoption of web 2.0 technologies the nature of CMEs have entirely changed and people started using computer mediated environments as frequent as they can, which is the main reason of Web 2.0 revolution. People started using internet very well and so applications like mails, chat, video streaming etc. Web 2.0 got its importance in combining all the applications on a single platform. We have improved functionalities on a single platform in such a way that we can login into a website, email friends, chat with them with out using separate software installation, participate in community discussions, view videos, have conversation about my desertion project etc. All the above things can be handled with out need of separate account logins. This could be possible using web 2.0 only. Thus Web 2.0 changed the way people deal with internet. Also Web 2.0 technologies made human to depend for any kind of solution.

Facebook : Facebook is the social networking website which was started in the year 2004. Mark Zuckerberg is the Founder, who started his facebook empire in Massachussetts, USA. The head quarters is located in California, USA. More than 900 people are being employed in Facebook Inc.

Main features of Facebook: Facebook is the social networking website where users are interconnected to each other on single platform. That platform is nothing but 'Facebook.' Not only user to user connectivity, but also have organization to user connectivity, which helps in leveraging business techniques. Users need to signup with facebook in order to use services from facebook website. Organizations can also start their own groups to which they can send invitations to users and subscribed users will get updates from moderator of the particular group(or community). The above is most interesting factor about facebook and the most helpful thing for businesses and we shall discuss about this in our next chapter. In facebook there are other options like walls, where we can post our ads which will be displayed to other users. News feeds are also helpful for users in facebook, in which users will get automatic updates like profile changes, event updates from their friends. Facebook also provides image hosting, where we can get unlimited photos to host. Another option called 'tagging' which will be available to tag(mark) things using keywords. This option will be most useful one to identify things quickly by other users. Many of the universities have their organizational groups in facebook (organizational groups are referred to as official groups) and friends group is referred to as student groups (these groups are been maintained by friends only for intercommunication). The main source of income for Facebook Inc is through banner ads and text ads. We can also send virtual gifts to other users. There is another option called chatting to chat with other users and 'poking' option to poke users. Another important feature here in facebook is posting classified ads. Users can post classified ads in facebook for free of cost. This feature is very much useful for small businesses. Facebook started itself as simple graphical interface(only with text) and have grown to fully graphical interface. About 11 months back, facebook started its profile linking with customized name like www.facebook.com/satishkakollu

Facebook can also been viewed on other mobile devices also. Facebook has its own applications developed by its development team as well as voluntary contributors who contribute applications developed by their own. We can make some communication interfaces very ease using those applications. Facebook has their portal in different languages including Thai, Chinese, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil and many more.

Sources:

• Eldon, Eric. "2008 Growth Puts Facebook In Better Position to Make Money". VentureBeat. http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/18/2008-growth-puts-facebook-in-better-position-to-make-money/.
• "Facebook frowns on buddy-buyer company", By The New York Post. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/facebook_frowns_on_buddy_buyer_company_DixVGIpAnBGuoWCeMqt5QJ
• http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/zuckerberg-facebook-will-have-a-business-plan-in-three-years
• http://developers.facebook.com/news.php

Second Life:

Second life.com is a virtual world website developed by Linden Lab in the year 2003. This website is accessible through specific software called Second life viewer. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in the activities of individuals and groups, and create and trade virtual property and services to cope with, or running around the world, which residents call the grid. Second Life, people over 18 years old, and young people who for the second life 13 to 17 years of age.

Features of Second Life : Second life can be viewed via Second life viewer software only. Users will be termed as residents and they will communicate with each other using customized avatars. Secondlife viewer will accept keyboard strokes only and we can fly from one region to another region using keyboard keys. There are several options like that and we can explore a lot of things using second life. Residents are of different types both free and paid. Now a days second life is charging $9.95 for paid members and comparing to free member it has advanced options. We can virtually reside in any place of the world which is the new concept of web 2.0. We can purchase things using Linden Dollar, this is the specialized currency in secondlife where we can purchase land ownership, islands etc. We can also purchase surname of the user, so that user can choose ours in the surname of their username as surname must be choosen from available username and business can purchase surnames to make them available to students.

There are many opportunities for innovation and profit in the world, Second Life, because in the real world. To open a shop, sell gadgets, become a land speculation, the choice is you can make. Many residents are part or all of their real life income second life business. We can find different types of environments in Second life, some of them are Dancer, Musician, Editor, Player, Landscape etc. We can join in that particular environment.

Business in Second Life: We can do business in Second life like buying properties and maintaining our own organizations. We can maintain virtual classrooms and also can give presentations over there. Secondlife also helps in providing good market place for our businesses and many of the universities (mainly business schools and Top Companies) are already been there to satisfy their demand. I did observed companies like IBM having their virtual space there.

Sources :

• https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Philip_Linden
• http://tleinsl.com/index.htm
• http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2009/03/million.html
• http://slurl.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Estonia/140/111/57/

Blogger:

Blogger was started by Pyra Labs in August 1999 in San Francisco. Even though those days were boomed with dotcom revolution, they faced problems in getting them selves funded by venture capitalists.

Using blogger, We can publish our voice for free and as simple as mailing, this is the core advantage of web 2.0 and in the previous case (in web 1.0 we must be aware of html code atleast to modify a website). With this the revoultion of easeness in web 2.0 technologies started. we can maintain our website for free of cost using blogger which comes with www.ourname.blogger.com (also www.ourname.blogspot.com after google purchased blogger). Simple user interface is the positive aspect for blogger.com where we can post our content using simple admin panel within seconds. We can use custom templates for our website. We can even upload our template to that website. We can easily make search engines to index our site easily. This is another core advantage of blogger and because of the same reason, many businesses have their blogs to communicate with people. Time stamping feature make blogger more popular, as user can know what is going on in those blog with time.

Actually to upload photoes and videos to our website, it will take alot of coding work when we use web 1.0 but using blogger , it will not take as much as 2 minute time. we can invite followers to our blog in which any user can get intimation on current updates. This is the feature that is helpful for users. My friend in India use to get coupon codes (to purchase laptops) from blogs. In that way we can use blogs for small businesses.

We can also post notifications to the users which mainly helpful for businesses in support sector. We can even maintain our blog in our local language with out purchasing any other software, which is the main asset for maintaining website for local business.

http://code.blogger.com/

http://www.blogger.com/features

Twitter :

        Twitter is the micro-blogging website where we can communicate with members using small sentences which are less than 140 words. We can communicate with other users in twitter very easily. Twitter's core technology is a device agnostic message routing system with rudimentary social networking features. By accepting messages from sms, web, mobile web, instant message, or from third party API projects, Twitter makes it easy for folks to stay connected.

(source : http://twitter.com/about)

        Twitter is an online application, part of the blog, social networking sites as part of part of the mobile phone / communication tool designed to allow users to answer "What are you doing?" User has 140 characters per post (or "tweet") to say anything are also concerned about that. Many call and the user does not answer the question what to do, but many other reactions, other chirp sound, point to online resources for users to find interesting, meditation, or issues. A similar social networking sites such as Facebook, which has itself grown to include mini-updates, Twitter, allows users to create a formal friendship, to jointly build a number and the Internet users. In addition, Twitter works with other phones and text messages to customers, so that a simple method for mobile phone users to keep in touch almost anywhere.

When you create an account, you can personalize your profile page, and then enter the call and into the text field. Unless you are protected chirp sound, they appear in the "public time" page, which displays all the public call and the time sequence, such as a series of "micro-blog." Identity of each call and Twitterer, whose screen name to link to the person's Personal Information page to show all the previous call and that she and her friends' tweet. If you are registered, you can add themselves as friends, to see her friends list and add any person who your friends. Once you have identified at least one friend's relationship, your Twitter home page shows post your tweet and your friends, but you can still access the public timetable for separation. You can also send private messages to your friends or posting a direct response to another tweet.

All the Twitter features are available through SMS. If you provide a phone number or instant Twitter contact information, you can "according to" individual users, even if you do not, and their friends. By choosing to follow a user, you will be notified by phone, instant messaging, or any time the person's job, a new tweet. Twitter integration of blog and other web pages, providing options for Flash and JavaScript code that allows web access Twitter updates. Twitter is also provided by the RSS, news aggregators subscribe to allow for individual information, may be a Twitterer posts, your friend's tweet, or the public timetable.

        Many people have written the benefits of active learning strategies using the tools and techniques to guide students in other ways than simply listening to teachers and take notes. In the same voting machines, way, the promotion of active learning, Twitter, and also be used for academic environment, to promote mutual understanding of a topic. Meta-cognition, thinking and reflection in practice of learning, has proved beneficial to the understanding and retention. As a tool for students or professional colleagues compared the thinking of a topic, Twitter may be a viable platform for cognitive, forcing users to brief and to the point, and an important skill, in the thinking of a clear and effective communication. In addition, Twitter can provide a simple way for participants at a meeting to share thinking meetings and activities, in particular with other people, for those unable to attend.

Applications in Twitter:

CoTweet: Even though Twitter is the platform for faster communication, it may sometimes look like messy when we got thousands of messages once at all. We may miss some of the updates, when each time we click for updates. So CoTweet will help us then. Cotweet is an application where we can use Twitter for systematic updates as well as Scheduling updates. We can use twitter to send updates to users and also to receive Twitter updates from users. We can also utilize this application for making quick publicity to followers. This is another web 2.0 Application which uses Twitter under its back ground. Scheduling messages is another important aspect for this application. We can communicate our discount vouchers, wishes etc using this option. Say if we have hosting services, we can place scheduled messages about server maintainance like server shutting time, discount coupons etc.

Main features of Cotweet is here is we can maintain multiple accounts and multiple users under single account, monitoring keywords and trends according to present market, instant email notifications, assign tweets to other to follow up, rich profile, click tracking, message archives etc.

It will help us in finding our followers and also helps us whom we are following. This service will help us in tracking whether the people we follow are following us or not. This will definitely help us in analyzing our feedback. Another advantage using this service is we can know our competitor business. Like being in hosting business, my friend use to follow his competitor also about whom they are following and also who are following him. In that way we can trace people and could advertise our self to them also. In that way we can leverage our business.

GroupTweet : Maintain twitter for a group

As the name indicates, Group tweet will help us in maintaining personal groups for an organization. The core advantage with Grouptweet is we can control tweets(messages) to users, like we can post messages to only to group members. This is another way to collaborate our office communication system with twitter. We can use that for both public and private postings like companies can post messages to its investors in public as well as employees in private messages. We can also allow users to join in our group by placing our listing in directory.

Sources : www.grouptweet.com

Monittor :

Monittor is just like keyword analysis tool in google adwords. This will allo us to moniter different keywords that are been in discussion under our group. This will definitely help us in businesses. So, that we could modify the content of our website and also target people according to their discussion. Say we are maintaining web hosting selling Linux and Windows servers. Suppose if people are discussing about share point server, then we can start those services also in advance to other competitors and grab market opportunities first than them. This is how we can leverage sales.

MrTweet :

This service analyses our behavior in network like what content we are posting, whom we are following and who are following us. Then it gives friend suggestions which may help us more. Say if a user from India is working as .NET professional, and posting updates related to .NET. Then Mr.Tweet may suggest him people from United Kingdom who are dealing with .NET (sometimes that service may suggest people who are hiring .NET people and more experienced people also) which will help us do grab more from the world.(www.mrtweet.com)

Twazzup :

Twazzup is the twitter searching service. We can search updated posts using this service. This service will help us in refining results as highlights, real time tweets, news and most popular links. This is the way Twazzup categorized the results. We can share the same page to our friends too which is most impressive thing. (source : www.twazzup.com)

Tweettake :

As we know twitter is an ocean , some times we may need important information that is located in twitter messages, then we can take help of tweettake inorder to back up our data. This may be helpful for businesses to analyze themselves about how they are using twitter and in what efficient they can use that.( source : www.tweetake.com)

Tweetbeep - Set up alerts to help you keep track of our keywords

This is another great tool for twitter users. This helps us in creating alerts. We can subscribe to that www.tweetbeep.com for free to get updates to our email box. This application will mainly be useful for things like we are maintaining a web server and we can get intimations about what people are discussing about our services and whether people do want services related to hosting etc. As we setup keywords there, we can get automatic intimations related to our business and we can find ready made buyers for our services. In customer aspect, we can get faster services comparing to posting things in sites etc.(Source : www.tweetbeep.com)

Tweetbuzzer - Tracking brand buzz on Twitter

This is twitter tracking system and it helps us in tracing discussions that are running over twitter. This may be the great tool for business people mainly investors in predicting things. We can sometimes estimate quarter results upon the usage graph and popularity of a brand. So like google analytics, this tools will definitely help investors in investing in result oriented companies. If we are trading something say food items, if people are posting items like maggi then according to their responses, we can get maggi products up for running. That is how we can predict things.

(Source : www.tweetbuzzer.com)

Tweetlater :

TweetLater consists of a set of tools for twitter users to help them increase their twitter productivity. You can auto follow twitter users who follow you as well as select the option to auto update your status welcoming new followers. Schedule tweets if you do not wish to tweet it right away. This can come in use when you need to tweet about a number of links or your own blog posts but fear that doing it all together might be taken as link spam by your followers. We can even track keywords of interest and have them mailed to you at regular intervals. Another great feature available at TweetLater is the RSS Feed which you can use to display on your blog. You can have tweets show up only on this RSS feed and not on your twitter account!

Features include Auto Follow twitter followers, Send a welcome message to twitter followers,Automatically send out a twitter update welcoming new followers, Receive all @Replies through email, RSS feed which you can display on your blog, Add multiple twitter accounts, Track keywords on twitter and get alerts

Source : http://www.twi5.com/tweetlater-twitter-productivity-tools/1048/

Twello and Twibs: Twitter business directory

The above sites are related to business directories. We can list out our twitter links in these websites under specific categories. This is the most important website that in useful for businesses. Right now world has became like a small village in the internet where can find many things related to our business. So we can use these directory services to improve our business. Say if a person in United Kingdom wants a website to support his business, it may cost him at least 400 pounds to start a simple website, but he can find things in the twitter business directory in such a way that he could get his website work done within 150 pounds. Thus he can get benefited using twitter website and leverage his business by getting things done for cheap. In the same process of leveraging he is also getting his business collaborated by outsourcing things. This saves him large amount of licensing fee as well as ge got things in professional manner.

(Sources : www.twello.com and www.twibs.com )

Other Services :

There are other programs like

Twitalyzer to measure your impact and success in social media with our rank in twitter about followers , retweets, our participation, number of references, our availability etc. This could help us in analyzing our self in our participation in Twitter.

Twitpic is a service to upload our photos to twitter in an easy way.

Twittercal is a free service that connects our Twitter account to our Google Calendar. Using this service we need not re login google every time to schedule and re schedule our plans. This operates google services in the background and facilitates us in using that calendar service in the background.

Twittercounter is used to display the number of followers we have under us. This site will also help in analyzing who are the top users and to whom maximum followers are subscribed. This details will help in analysis about mode of business.

Twitterfeed is used as an aggregation service for all of our RSS feeds.

Twiveaway is useful for organizing a prize competition to particularly a group or a community.

Twitbiz is another Twitter business directory which lists world businesses and acts as an classified site.

Twtpoll is a service which helps us in conducting polls very easily. This will definitely help us in making effective polls for users. We can also create polls with our brandname with just minimal service charge.

Twtqpon is the site which helps in creating Simple Twitter Coupons which help us in increasing sale leads for our business. Say if we have web hosting service, as a new year offer I can create a coupon code there to give discount to new subscribers. So that it will increase sales for my business and also it will help me in getting new customers.

Twtvite is to invite people to a meeting. Say we are going to conduct publicity camp for Web 2.0 implementation in London, UK. Then we can place meeting venue as London and will specify time. So that people who are especially interest in web technologies will attend that meeting.

Whatthetrend This service is helpful in finding out what's trending on Twitter and why it is getting populated. Using this we can know top keywords and move our business into that specific field. Suppose if we are operating gifts business, generally we will post ads as Gifts for 10% discount etc. If we could know latest trends, like as of now it is Christmas period and I found XMAS in top keyword in trends, then I can publicize my business in such a way that 'XMAS GIFTS' which attracts more people as of now until popularity of the word expires.

The above applications are some of the services to use Twitter which help to leverage and collaborate business.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

        Research is defined as "Study and investigation, especially to discover new facts" (Oxford Mini Dictionary). We follow different ways to study and investigate, these are termed to be Research Methodologies. They can be implemented according to type of research we are going to perform. We need to do research on specific problem in order to describe, explore and diagnose the problem. Then we can implement hypothesis, inductions and deductions on those.

QUALITIES OF A GOOD RESEARCH

• The research should be logical which has clear cut specifications.
• The research should be systematic by placing contents in an order,
• The research should be empirical (i.e) the information should be gained from set of observations, experiences and experiments.
• The research should be replicable, which means it should be easy to test in other environments also and should be easily reproduced.
• The research should be Creative
• The research should not depend on single method and we should use multiple methods to do the research.

IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH

• Focus on risks and un certainty.
• Research helps in identifying alternative solutions.
• Research helps in using resources in optimum manner.
• Research is useful in finding solutions to social problems.
• Research also helps in developing new ideas.
• More and more research is a decision maker.

BARRIERS IN THE PROCESS OF RESEARCH :

• Research is not like science to find accurate solutions.
• Research consists of a number of variables which are sometimes uncontrollable.
• Unlike science Research involves human movement, we should work manually to observe past, present and to implement for future.
• Research involves risk of lot of time taking and money.
• Research is not an automated process and there is always a risk of computerization.

TYPES OF RESEARCH :

Descriptive Research: This research method is also called as statistical research. This research is aimed in describing the characteristics of the situation at present. The same research method will be used for describing personals also. Here using this research we can not find solution or we are not going to derive a new thing from the existing ones. This research is best suitable for particular product functionality and it clarifies us queries like

• Who is the user of the product
• What is the going to do with the product
• How to use the product
• Where the product is used.

Analytical Research: Analytical Research is primarily concerned with testing hypothesis and specifying and interpreting relationships, by analyzing the facts or information already available.

Applied Research: Applied Research is find out real life problem and applying solutions to those problems.

Fundamental Research: This research is also known as basic or pure research. This research is done just for knowledge purpose and we are not going to apply on any particular system in real-time.

Quantitative Research : This research is done to process quality data and is mainly used to analyze statistical information.

Qualitative Research : Qualitative Research is purely opposite to quantitative research and is helpful in finding out quality of a specified phenominon

Conceptual Research: Conceptual research is used to develop and modify existing concepts.

Empirical Research : Empirical research is a data based research which depends on experience or observation alone. This research is aimed at coming up with conclusions without due regard for system and theory.

One-time Research : One-time research confined to a single time period.

Longitudinal Research : Longitudinal Research carried on over several time periods like investigating keyword demand in google in specific months.

Diagnostic Research : Diagnostic is also called clinical research which aims at identifying the causes of a problem, frequency with which it occurs and the possible solutions for it.

Exploratory Research : It is the preliminary study of an unfamiliar problem, about which the researcher has little or no knowledge. It is aimed to gain familiarity with the problem, to generate new ideas or to make a precise formulation of the problem. Hence it is also known as formulative research.

Concept I plan to use:

I plan to use Conceptual Research method to study existing concept and modifying them into new ones.

I am attaching interviews of a college representative as well as a web 2.0 user to analyze things.

Interview with College Official Representative:

(Mr.Rakesh works in D.M.S.S.V.H, India college administrative department as manager.)

Satish : How do you conduct advertisement campaigns ? Do you know using Web 2.0 for your organisation?

Rakesh : We advertise through local news paper.

Satish : How did you promoted your business before web 2.0 ?

Rakesh : I know little about web 2.0. Our college has Facebook Community and also we maintain Youtube channel to update different college events. We plan to use Twitter also.

Satish : How do you use Facebook for your organization ?

Rakesh : We give alerts to our students and staff about schedule changes and also about events etc. Our students have really fun with Facebook along with advancing many things through Facebook. Also we observed that students had got their jobs by promoting them selves to the seniors through Facebook.

Satish : Do you know about Secondlife ?

Rakesh: I know very little about Secondlife. I applied for an account in second , but could not create as I am residing in India.(right now I don't think Secondlife people are allowing Indians to create an account)

Satish : If Secondlife is a place where you can live virtually , then will you prefer to create an account and how do you use that ?

Rakesh : No worries, Satish. I did known about Secondlife. We personally have no barriers to conduct classrooms physically. But we can definitely use Secondlife to attract abroad students to our college but promoting our ads.

Satish : Have you used Youtube for your Organisation?

Rakesh: We generally have atleast 4-5 hours of videos about college events in a week. So we use Youtube to upload our videos, so that our students and alumni can view them.

Satish : Do you know about blogs ?

Rakesh : We used to maintain an official blog earlier but as of now , we did not know how exactly blog help us more than a website.

Satish : Do you know about Wikipedia ? Do you think that is helpful for your organisation?

Rakesh : Wikipedia help us a lot in demonstrating things. Even our students refer wikipedia for their academic studies also for some times.

Satish : How do you use twitter ?

Rakesh : Our students follow me through Twitter and most of them got connected through mobiles. So my message will reach them in seconds.

Satish : How can we use web 2.0 to leverage your business ?

Rakesh : We are in educational field. So these technologies will definitely help us in communicating with students and staff at very great velocity. So web 2.0 definitely is helping us in improving our business.

Satish : How do you rate 'web 2.0 usage in business' if you are asked to rate for 10 ?

Rakesh : I should definitely rate 9/10 as per my theoretical knowledge from web . But now I am able to implement 2/10 to use web 2.0 technologies for business. If we could have some standard schools to demonstrate us things to use web 2.0 then it might definitely help us.

Satish : Can you explain clearly ?

Rakesh : I have been working in this college for 15 years. I know the problems that I faced to communicate with student right from beginning. Now by using web 2.0 technologies like twitter, Facebook I could be in communication with my students and they are moving freely with me in Facebook and are asking me queries related to my subject. We are now in sonic world where I can communicate my students within seconds. So Web 2.0 did showed a lot of impact and is helpful to businesses in leveraging.

Interview with Web 2.0 User

(Brief introduction : Mr.Prasanth is working in Linux Hosting USA as business consultant for companies and clients too)

Satish : How do you conduct advertisement campaigns ? Do you know using Web 2.0 for your business?

Prasanth : I generally use paper display classified ads and internet sponsored ads to populate my business.

Satish : How did you promoted your business before web 2.0 ?

Prasanth : I am promoting things through paper classified ads.

Satish : Have you used Facebook for your business ?

Prasanth : I do use Facebook to increase our business and even we use Facebook to support our clients.

Satish : have you used Secondlife for your business ?

Prasanth: Of course I did. I am fan of Secondlife.com and I generated some good leads just by personal advertisements. I did not ever purchased properties there and did not traded yet.

Satish : Have you used twitter?

Prasanth : I use twitter very well dude. I do communicate my clients in twitter too.

Satish : Have you used Youtube for your business?

Prasanth: I know how to increase business using Youtube, but I did not implemented for our business. We have implemented things for a website called 'Teluguone' and they have almost 4000+ videos with them

Satish : Do you know about blogs ?

Prasanth : Blogs are simple ones and every one can maintain their own in just seconds. I depend on blogs only to get updates about my shares.

Satish : Do you know about Wikipedia ? Do you think that is helpful for business?

Prasanth : Yes. Wikipedia is an ocean, where we find all stuff to learn a lot. I don't know the ways to use for business but that site is good for academics.

Satish : What other technologies do you know for leveraging business ?

Prasanth : There are a lot of technologies like google sense, slideshare, digg, linkedin and so many.

Satish : How can we use them to leverage our business ?

Prasanth : We can use google adsense by embedding google ads into your site. You can earn revenues using google adsense feature. As we all know Slideshare is used to share our slides over internet.

Satish : Have you used them for education purpose ?

Prasanth : Not actually directly, but I gave my support to JNTU university people in improving their standards.

Satish : Can you explain clearly ?

Prasanth : I created a community for JNTU university people and people who joins in the community will get alerts, which are displayed in their walls. Also they used to have a twitter account where they used to communicate important information like exam schedules, result kind of thing in twitter. They did not start anything in Youtube as here is the bandwidth problem. They also did not started Secondlife account, as they are not approving second life here.

Satish : Finally what is your opinion about web 2.0 technologies ? Do you feel that some amendments are to be made ?

Prasanth : Web 2.0 sites are like Paris for Information Technology, where we need not wait for the information to update. Information will get updated continuously by number of people and our duty is to gather that information. We are observing fast developments in web 2.0 sites right from the beginning so we need to find ways to make web 2.0 more productive for especially for businesses.

Conceptual Study :

Wikis:

• Wikipedia is an online free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit and contribute to. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Waleshas described Wikipedia as "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest quality to every single person on the planet in his or her own language." Wikipedia exists to bring knowledge to everyone who seeks it.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview)

• Wiki is the word refers to as online database where any person can add , edit and delete content. This helps in building vast data empire in very short span and could also be very much helpful for users and they can also perform early modifications. Actually Britannica Encyclopedia is the main source of thought to wiki website. In Britannica Encyclopedia, only paid content writers will research on topic and generate information related to that. But Wikis are logically the same but difference is we can become content writer voluntarily and edit content in wikis.

Wikis in business collaboration:

• Before knowing wikis in the usage of business collaboration and leverage , we must know the concept of 'why wikis became most popular for content or article search'. The reason is
• In the opening stages of open source revolution and web 2.0, companies recognized the value of open source revolution and started contributing them by posting topics related to that field and starting giving valuable information about their related to their specific field. Also many people also started contributing to open source technologies like wiki to make that very popular. They started referring their topic links to other to make them selves most popular.
• Search Engines are the main reason for the popularity of wikis. We always 'search' in internet for a specific topic incase if we want content related to that. We generally use search engines like google, yahoo, msn for that purpose. To display results in the top of the list search engines mainly google follow the strategy of displaying content of frequently updated websites. As wikipedia get its website updated very frequently, it used to get top in the list. So visitors have increased and found the website coming in the top of the list for every keyword or new word.
• Another advantage of wiki websites is search, we can search wiki websites very easily. As keywords are mentioned with specific symbols.

Now we are discussing about the usage of WIKI websites (wikis) in the process of collaboration and leveraging business.

We can use wikis in the process to gain faster idea about what is going around the world. There are several wiki sites like wikimapia, wikiversity, wikistock etc. We can find concrete information in wiki websites. So people will come to these websites for search purpose. In these websites we can maintain communities mainly private communities which are very much helpful for companies for collaborative modification. This process will always support competitive environment as well as informative collaboration.

We can use other wiki sites like wikimapia for collaborative mapping and wikiversity for collaborative learning and editing education related things. Say suppose if we want to learn course like share point, we not tell could sharepoint as a whole can be learned from wikiversity, but maximum part and at least basic introduction to the course can be learned using wikiversity. That's how wikipedia is helping us in teaching us new technologies.

Suppose we are maintaining a website and are selling products.like optical goods. There will have thousands of people who seek for content in wikipedia. So we can start a posting with the title opticals and can publish our website links in the middle of the content. So if user come to wikipedia, then he will go through the content and click on that particular website, if he wants which which lead to new client for us.

        Say we are maintain a hosting company, then can recommend people about our services in the form of posts and another advantage with this is we will get higher ranks in search engines for getting referred through wikipedia. That is one option. Otherwise we can find things like community portal where all the data of particular field will be maintained as collection. We can start discussions related to particular subject which will help us in being interacted with people.

Example Usage: Say if any one want to know who is 'Columbus', then they used to search Britannica Encyclopedia book for the topic 'Columbus' they might have found things related to old category, but how about if they want one month back populated persons like 'Obama'(say after a month of Obama's victory) . Absolutely we can not find content until next release. Here is the collaboration of learning is through wiki website to become our self content full.

Sources : The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web, ward cunningham & Bo Leuf

Youtube :

Youtube is video sharing website which is the symbol of Web 2.0. This service is innovat