Over the weekend, there was a press release about a Cisco study that looked at how Web 2.0 technologies and online video affect business, and to no one's great surprise, new social media technologies appear to be improving collaboration. Companies are using video and Web 2.0 to grow business and meet customers' needs. That's not rocket science, obviously -- such is the whole point of these types of technologies.
The study had some other interesting findings, however. More than half of IT decision makers were using these tools with another 25 percent saying they planned to in the near future.
Companies were looking at Web 2.0 investments for a number of reasons as well. The survey responders cited a desire to address customers' demands for innovative products as well as a desire to be more environmentally conscious. Security and cost were the biggest barriers to pursuing these efforts.
At Helpstream, we agree that Web 2.0 technologies improve collaboration, both internally within a company and externally between a company and its customers, and we feel they should be incorporated within SaaS applications. At the same time, however, we also believe that a SaaS offering needs to be sensitive to the way things have been done in the past, especially when it comes to business-critical processes.
Helpstream's CEO, Anthony Nemelka, recently did a blog post related to this topic as it pertains to customer service. It can be found at http://corpblog.helpstream.biz/ExpertsCrowds.