Solutions :: Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Strategic Specialists

RIA (Rich Internet Applications), Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0, "mashups", portals and a few other exciting web technologies are changing the way information will be delivered to your target audience. Although some businesses will remain successful with a traditional "corporately published" web presence, the future of successful e-business models is moving toward an interactive accumulation of useful information driven by user-generated content.

The Web 2.0 philosophy incorporates social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.

Enterprise 2.0 refers to social software used in enterprise business contexts, including social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication.

Enterprise 2.0 Specific Web 2.0 and social computing tools that have been adapted for enterprise use include:

• Wikis for authoring and linking
• Weblogs for authoring and storytelling
• Social bookmarking for tagging and building folksonomy
• Rich Internet Applications and "mashups" to deliver information on demand
• RSS Newsreaders for signaling and RSS publication
• Hypertext and unstructured search tools for increased
• Social Marketing Optimization methods to tap existing communities

Partnering with Commonplaces will contribute an extensive and proven background as a pioneer of social networking and internet community-building to support and promote your e-business initiatives.

Although many web firms claim to Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 knowledge. With over a decade of insider hands-on experience directly influencing the revolution of Web 2.0 concepts, only Commonplaces can confidently provide the strategic guidance and tactical planning your business needs to initiate and grow a truly successful community.

Through Ben Bassi, Commonplaces' Internet and social networking experience dates back to the early 90s, when as VP of Sales for Object Design he directed several projects for IBM and the federal government. Below are some ground-breaking examples of our early success in the social networking arena. (Well before the term “Web 2.0” was coined.) As the COO of the Firefly Network and VP of Business Development at Lycos, Inc., Ben Bassi was instrumental in architecting the success of:

• My Yahoo! - The Internet's first personalized webpage
• Firefly Network - One of the first personalized communities

These websites were ahead of their time in that they blazed the path for community-building and social communication similar to current Web 2.0 Social Networking.

MyBytes.com

Groundbreaking Social Network

mybytes.com was designed to provide an internet hub that supported marketers in their efforts to reach over 15 million students enrolled in 3,000 U.S. colleges and universities with targeted, "contextual" messages, and e-commerce opportunities tailored for each student based on his or her particular interests and tastes while maintaining their privacy.

Ben Bassi, then the president of YouthStream Media Networks (Cambridge, MA), worked extensively with two research firms and an anthropologist to define the needs of their collegiate customer base. Mybytes.com was the first site to break the “portal” mold and build an inclusive student-centric “hub”, with all the personalized news, shopping, academic help, campus information and other web-based data a college student can want. The service is divided into two parts, one addressing academic needs and the other addressing lifestyle issues such as health and relationships.

These student-centric offerings did not require campus participation. While mybytes.com was designed to accommodate entire campus participation to enrich the offering with campus-specific information, the network was designed to be flexible in its ability to support individual students, professors, organizations or departments.

Teen.com

Teen.com is one of the most popular teen resources on the Internet. It contains daily features and columns such as advice, diaries, poetry contests, fashion, beauty, movie and music reviews, homework help, games, jokes, news, horoscopes, college information, and a free daily Email newsletter. Teen.com received 56 million page views and 2.1 million unique visitors per month.

SixDegrees.com

SixDegrees.com was the original social network service website that lasted from 1997 to 2001. It was named after the six degrees of separation concept and allowed users to list friends, family members and acquaintances both on the site and externally; external contacts were invited to join the site. Users could send messages and post bulletin board items to people in their first, second, and third degrees, and see their connection to any other user on the site. With its concept of transferring real-world connections online, SixDegrees anticipated later, and more successful, social networking sites such as Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace and FaceBook.