Blogs, mashups, & wikis: oh, my! Ready or not, Web 2.0, a new generation of web-based services, is changing the way people work and the way records and documents are created, used, and shared.

• Author: Dearstyne, Bruce W.
• Position: Company overview

The tremendous surge in web-based services and applications, known as "Web 2.0," and their corresponding influence on how people create, exchange, and use information are producing an array of new challenges for records and information management (RIM) professionals--including how to use these tools effectively and how to manage the creation, integrity, storage, access, and dissemination of such dynamic information.

The term "Web 2.0" originated about three years ago and still lacks a formal, agreed-upon definition. Wikipedia defines it as "a perceived second-generation of web-based services--such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies--that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users" Web 2.0 is participatory, collaborative, inclusive, creator-/user-centric, unsettled, and very information-intensive. It has these traits:

* Workstyle. a style of collaborative working through online communities that stresses encouraging knowledge workers to be creative and innovative, to contribute to initiatives and projects, and to build on each other's work toward an outstanding collaborative end product or service

* Applications: a set of agile, versatile tools/platforms/applications that support interaction by online communities, such as blogs and wilds

* Software: an array of software that connects people and applications to help draw out and organize collective intelligence; some of this software has been produced by small to mid-sized companies, but larger firms such as Microsoft, IBM, and Google also offer new or refined products

A 'Massive Phenomenon'

Over the past few years, at least four trends have accelerated the upsurge of Web 2.0:

1. The development and popularity of online social networks for exchanging personal information, photos, videos, and other information (e.g., MySpace, VouTube, Flickr, and Second Life).

2. The broadening availability of easy-to-use software. This and the first trend, in particular, led Time magazine to declare the user to be 2006's "Person of the Year." According to Time's cover story, "you control the information age" Jeff Howe's article "Your Web, Your Way" described three types of online collaborative communities:

   * The toolmakers: users building and customizing their own tools for convenience and versatility. Examples include Wikipedia (an example of "crowdsourcing"); Google (search engine built around a "social function"--counting links between websites--and adding features like maps); MySpace (120 million users, maximization of individuality); and eBay (online sales; customer ratings weed out dishonesty).

   * The gatherers: users gathering, filtering, and commenting on blog posts and photographs and finding an audience for them. Examples include Technorati (searches and ranks topics in the blogosphere); del.icio.us (allows users to share their web-browser bookmarks; digg (the crowd rates news stories); Flickr (sharing photos); and Bloglines (lets users subscribe to various sites and receive updates from them).

   * The entertainers: movie, music, book, and videogame industries on the web. Examples include Amazon.com (customer reviews/evaluations of books); YouTube (anyone can be in the entertainment field); and Second Life (imaginary world where users interact and can spend real money).

3. The search for techniques to foster more productive use of information. A recent study by the research/consulting firm Basex asserts that overwhelming amounts of e-mail and other information frustrate knowledge workers and distract from more productive work. Managers, weary of spare, employee time lost dealing with unneeded or inappropriate e-mail, and other problems, welcome the potential benefits of the new tools' self-organizing, self-policing aspects.

4. The rising importance of knowledge workers, who, according to Tom Davenport in Thinking for a Living, "... have high degrees of expertise, education, or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution, and application of knowledge." Knowledge workers are heavily dependent on information systems and tools to create information and also to access, analyze, exchange, and synthesize the information that is the essential precursor of knowledge.

   Three types of Web 2.0 collaborative tools are particularly important:

1. Blogs: user-generated web journals that offer opinions and information and that may include text, images, and links to other blogs and web pages. Some blogs are confined to personal expressions, but others make provision for reactions and comments from readers.

2. Mashups: websites or other applications that integrate content from more than one source into an integrated application (e.g., combining data on a topic of interest with geographical data).

3. Wikis: according to Wikipedia, a wiki "is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, edit, and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring. The term wild also can refer to the collaborative software itself ... that facilitates the operation of such a site..."

   Web 2.0 is important to RIM professionals because it is accelerating and changing the way people work and the way records and documents are created. In fact, Andrew McAfee, an expert on technology trends, and others have suggested an even more dramatic term, "Enterprise 2.0;' to describe platforms that organizations use to "make visible the practices and outputs of their knowledge workers:' A recent Information Week survey confirmed the rising popularity of instant messaging, collaborative content tools, wikis, and blogs: "Within a few years, rich, collaborative software platforms that include a slate of technologies like wilds, blogs, integrated search, and unified communications will be the norm... Employees will expect to work that way, and...