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Last week I attended the E-Publishing Innovation Forum in London and was a little surprised to find that one or two speakers were still presenting Web 2.0 solutions such as article commenting, ‘twittering’ and peer to peer networking as the must-have for all web publishers. I use the word ‘surprised’ because it is my firm belief that this is not the case; we shouldn’t all stop focusing on a yet to be exhausted Web 1.0 by getting overly excited about some modern web applications which really DO NOT fit all publishing scenarios – especially those in many B2B sectors.

‘Web 2.0’ is defined in Wikipedia as ‘the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users’. It is by that definition that I say it should be entered into wisely by a B2B publisher – dipping a toe in the water of user commenting to see what might happen is probably the best idea before embarking on an expensive website development project.

In my opinion there are some core factors which when evaluated can tell us whether Web 2.0 functions will be successful on a website… or just sit there redundant making the website look even more devoid of life than if did prior to the supplementary ‘comment here’ calls to action. I call my theory the ‘Peskett’s Posting Predictor’ and it is based on my experiences with different publishing clients, what I see on web platforms and what I have discussed with my peers at numerous conferences during the past year.

There are six factors which when entered into ‘Peskett’s Posting Predictor’ will tell you whether there is a poor or good chance of Web 2.0 functionality take up on a site, these are:

a) Traditional Community Spirit (Score 1-5)
b) Passion for Day Job (Score 1-5)
c) Daily Reader Isolation (Score 1-5)
d) Reader Ego / Vanity (Score 1-5)
e) Hours of Daily Internet Access Per Reader? (Score 1-5)
f) Competitive / Secretive Vertical (Score 1-10)

These scores are entered into the following success equation: e((a+b+c+d)-f)

‘Traditional Community Spirit’ (a) usually a historic ‘community’ vibe and can be influenced by external factors such as government legislation, economic and environmental factors which increase bonding where a body of people can use social tools to unite against a perceived attack on their businesses or trade.

‘Passion for Day Job’ (b) is there from the outset, white collar workers are more like to be passionate about their jobs than blue collar (but both equally passionate about ’social’ topics - hobbies & sport etc.).

Daily Reader Isolation (c) varies - often a mix within an industry sector where independents (home workers and SMEs) seek a common group, whereas corporate environments offer ideas sharing internally.

Reader Ego / Vanity (d) is probably an offshoot of (b) - more passionate areas see more individuals seeking to raise their own profiles

Hours of Daily Internet Access Per Reader? (e) - the longer somebody is sat in front of the Internet the greater the chance they may spare a moment for a comment on an article given other factors (a,b,c,d,f)

Competitive / Secretive Vertical (f) - a strong influencer of Web 2.0 participation because it can override all other factors. Money is the vital ingredient in business and nobody wants to give away a secret or get fired for sharing company information. Equally nobody really wants to help a competitor to reach a decision which might make them a more difficult rival. In this sense it is in B2B that Web 2.0 is the most unlikely to flourish unless among salespeople, SMEs and job seekers using networking tools to their advantage.

After scoring the various factors of ‘Peskett’s Posting Predictor’ for a business sector and calculating using the formula e((a+b+c+d)-f) the resulting score will tell you whether it is worth considering a web project. Anything over 25 is probably worth trialing, over 50 and you’re most likely onto a winner.

Here are three example calculations:

Road Sweepers
a) Traditional Community Spirit? 1
b) Passion for Subject? 1
c) Daily Isolation? 5
d) Ego / Vanity? 1
e) Hours of Daily Internet Access? 1
f) Competitive & Secretive? 1

1((1+1+5+1)-1) = 7: Web 2.0 FAILURE

Farmers
a) Traditional Community Spirit? 5
b) Passion for Subject? 5
c) Daily Isolation? 5
d) Ego / Vanity? 1
e) Hours of Daily Internet Access? 2
f) Competitive & Secretive? 1

2((5+5+5+1)-1) = 30: Web 2.0 SUCCESS

Students & Academics
a) Traditional Community Spirit? 5
b) Passion for Subject? 5
c) Daily Isolation? 2
d) Ego / Vanity? 5
e) Hours of Daily Internet Access? 5
f) Competitive & Secretive? 3

5((5+5+2+5)-3) = 70: Web 2.0 BIG SUCCESS

Daily newspapers have a mix of all people and will publish a variety of topics from business to social, some will generate interest and some will not. According to a speaker from The Guardian I saw last week (Tom Turcan) they get 100,000 comments a month posted online. At face value this sounds like a lot but I’d guess that probably half came from unique visitors – taking us down to 50,000 commenting individuals, from a pool of 18 million unique visitors (0.27%). This is about the same as average click through rates on a single banner advert, and given that most sites have multiple banners per page this makes Web 2.0 commenting far less of a runaway success at present than all the hype suggests.

Technorati Tags: web 2.0, business publishing, user commenting, social networking, epublishing, web development, community tools

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