Introduction
Web 1.0 was devoid of the many features that we have seen today where the Web has become a major platform for communication. Web 1.0 was static in nature where a website was used to primarily store data about a company and nothing else. They did not have the dynamic features whereby they are connected to the database. Most of today’s web pages are database-driven where they are connected to the database which is stored in a web server. This has revolutionized how users access information from the Internet.
Web applications are fast-moving toward web 2.0 technologies. Organizations are setting up systems to reap the benefits of this new technology. The reason behind this surge in web 2.0 adoption is that this technology has advantages over its predecessor, web 1.0. This technology is a mash-up of technologies, business strategies, and social trends. It is more dynamic and comes with it features that allow users to communicate more interactively giving more user satisfaction. This is true since communication is a very vital aspect of the success of any company. Improvement of communication between employees in an organization brings with it the advantages of higher productivity. This has been achieved greatly in web 2.0. It has rich communication features like blogs, instant messages, and wiki. These tools are very interactive and bring more satisfaction to the users. Companies that began as Web 2.0 businesses will have the advantage since they don’t have the added task of transforming an old business model. The implementation of Web 2.0 is simpler because its development and improvement are done in phases. This is because it is actually the users themselves who add to the system. They are considered co-developers in the world of Web 2.0.
Developments in Web 2.0
There have been developments that have been experienced in the development of Web 2.0. These developments have helped bring much flexibility and ease in communicating to most organizations. These developments have made possible the existence of some technologies like blogs, wikis, and social networking tools. This paper will look into the use of this technology in McDonald’s Company. This company deals with food retailing and has a vast collection of stores spread across the country.
Blogs
Blogging is a very good tool that provides two-way Web-based communication capability. This is achieved when a blogger, or writer, posts an item on the Web, and readers or users will post their comments on the same. Users will post comments thus providing a way of getting views from different people over a matter. These blogs have a format similar to that of a journal and they are posted in a reverse order based on the date they were posted. These posts can contain text files, videos, images, and even links to other sites. The company will benefit from this when the posts and the technology of Web 2.0 are used to convey information. Most of the blogs on the Internet today are of textual nature while the rest are video to cater for photographs posted using today’s sophisticated mobile phones. Companies which have their own blogs, referred to as private blogs, are able to provide employees with a very efficient way of real-time communication. This capability is provided through liveblogging. This will bring more usability within our organization. This channel of communication, blogging, has other features which are desirable to any company seeking to improve their communication. The features that come with blogs are much different from other communication channels like e-mail and instant messaging services. If these tools were to be implemented outside the Web 2.0 framework, it would be very expensive to the company. With blogging, the costs of implementing these interactive communication tools have been reduced (Candace 23). What the company needs to do is to pay for enough bandwidth for their Internet connection. This is much less when compared to installing complicated systems. Blogging is much receptive to the users because they provide an open way of communication, unlike the traditional telephone system where someone has to follow some protocol when addressing some callers. Blogs outdo emails because comments are written in a freestyle giving users the freedom of sharing their views without fear of intimidation.
Web 2.0 use in the travel industry
Blogging can link to other blog posts, thus blogs can travel from site to site. This advantage makes the employees updated as they move from site to site. This is especially true in this industry and should be among the first people to implement. Employees will always be looking for the latest posts to comment and they can have other links directed to other blogs they are interested in from other sites. With these links, people with the same interest will be brought together and will help to form an informative online community (Zervaas 20).
Blogging will provide the ease of searching for articles in the travel industries with ease. This is because it has features where it will enable our employees to search for older posts using either subject or author (Coleman, & Levine 43). This will improve relationships in the company because blogs written by managing directors or those with higher ranks in the company will be given good addressing and seriousness they deserve. It will be easy to achieve this because what the user needs to do is to search for blog posts according to the author’s criteria and it will be displayed with minimal time.
Syndication has come of age with many travel agency firms. If a user subscribes to a blog, they will know the time it was updated thus saving organizations time that could otherwise be used to search for them. Users can subscribe to several blogs and their updates will be posted on their personal home pages or email inbox.
It is clear from this that blogging will be a good investment in the traveling industry because communication will be improved. A community of users will be developed which will be easy to liaise with blogging.
Really Simple Syndication
This technology, commonly known as RSS, is a group of Web feed for syndicating content (Zervaas, Quentin). They provide the capability of letting the users get updates in their email inbox. Web blogs have an orange button that asks the reader to subscribe to it. On subscribing, the reader will have the chance of getting updates and news from these sites. This feature will benefit the company especially for those users who rarely engage in social networking. Most users check their mail at least twice a day. This is a sure way of passing communication to our employees because if they subscribe to the RSS they will get daily updates without having to visit the blog site.
Social networking tools
There has been a burst in social networking tools ranging from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube. These tools have made it possible for people to communicate more easily and efficiently (Coleman, & Levine 342). With tools like Facebook, someone can have a group where only matters of a particular taste are discussed. These tools can be used positively within the industry. With the mobility of the employees and the staff, there is a need to have a common communication platform so that the ever-moving staff will communicate with each other.
Food and retail industry and Web 2.0
The rest of the paper will look into the use of this technology in McDonald’s Company. This company deals with food retailing and has a vast collection of stores spread across the country. Given the fact that this company has many outlets, there is a lot to be desired when it comes to Web 2.0. The
As Web 2.0 still remains the buzzword in the information technology industry, Web 3.0 is in the offing. The biggest difference between Web 3.0 and the predecessor such as Web 1.0 and 2.0 is the availability to “understand and use” your information/meaning (semantics) as “data”. In other words, the web can satisfy the users’ requests and run the machines/devices from the information gathered from you. There are improvements and expectations that are seen in the. Web 3.0, popularly known as the Semantic Web, is expected to bring a big transformation to the Internet; it is foreseen that non-browser applications can access this large repository of data. It is expected that Web 3.0 will be a leverage of artificial intelligence technologies and Geospatial Web. This new technology will emphasize more on the machine-facilitated understanding of information in order to avail a more productive and intuitive user experience. Web 3.0 will therefore consist of the semantic web, data-mining, machine learning, microformats, which is known as the Artificial Intelligence or Intelligent Web. It has been predicted by many an expert that Web 3.0 will be a marriage of artificial intelligence and the web. From all these predictions, it is clear that Web 3.0 is the next step in the march towards better and optimized Internet use.
Works cited
Candace, Peter. Social software and Web 2.0 technology trends.PA: Idea Group Inc. 2009.
Coleman, Diana, & Levine, Shadrack. Collaboration 2.0: Technology and best practices for successful collaboration in Web 2.0 world. Happy About. 2008.
Zervaas, Quentin. The Future of the Internet and the Semantic web. Chicago: Springer. 2007.