User-driven online services have captured all possible attentions from almost everyone. A wide spectrum of web technology based philosophy is emerging known as web 2.0. These technologies are based on user participation, collaboration among users, sharing contents and easy information dissemination. The rising popularity of user-driven online services, including MySpace, Google Maps, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, digg, truemores, squidoo, all kinds of blogs, mashups and many more, has drawn attention to a group of technological developments known as Web 2.0. These technologies, which rely on user collaboration, include Web services, peer-to-peer networking, blogs, podcasts, and online social networks.

Companies use the Web to reach customers throughout the decision-making process. The McKinsey conducted a survey on “How businesses are using Web 2.0″. The participating companies in the survey cited that “Web 2.0 technologies are strategic and that they plan to increase these investments. Web 2.0 is in this survey defined as Blogs, Collective intelligence, Mash-ups, Peer-to-peer networking (P2P), Podcasts, RSS (Really Simple Syndication), Social networking, Web services and Wikis.”

Web 2.0 is the most talked topics in companies these days, but they are still very slow embracing the benefits of blogs, wikis and other new collaborative and participative technologies. Most of the companies are investing on migrating and enabling their enterprise software solutions to Web services based applications, corporate websites are integrating blogs and other wiki tools for Collective Intelligence and networked staffs are using P2P solutions. It is very important that technologies should enable automation and networking. Web 2.0 technologies are also extensively used to communicate with customers, collaborate with business partners and to encourage collaboration among staffs in company.

In addition to established marketing tools such as e-mail, brochure websites, and banner advertising, companies are also showing some reasonable interest in the interactive and collaborative technologies collectively known as Web 2.02 for advertising, product development, and customer service.

McKinsey has listed some of the emerging vehicles for business:

Blogs (short for Web logs) are online journals or diaries hosted on a Web site.

Online games include both games played on dedicated game consoles that can be networked and “massively multiplayer” games, which involve thousands of people who interact simultaneously through personal avatars in online worlds that exist independently of any single player’s activity.

Podcasts are audio or video recordings - a multimedia form of a blog or other content. They are often distributed through aggregators, such as iTunes.

Social networks allow members of specific sites to learn about other members’ skills, talents, knowledge, or preferences. Commercial examples include Facebook and MySpace. Some companies use such systems internally to help identify experts.

Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, are highly social, three-dimensional online environments shaped by users who interact with and receive instant feedback from other users through the use of avatars.

Web services are software systems that make it easier for different systems to communicate with each other automatically to pass information or conduct transactions. A retailer and supplier, for example, might use Web services to communicate over the public Internet and automatically update each other’s inventory systems.

Widgets are programs that allow access from users’ desktops to Web-based content.

Wikis, such as Wikipedia, are systems for collaborative publishing. They allow many authors to contribute to an online document or discussion.

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