Enterprise 2.0 : Hype or Reality?

WhenTime magazine named “You” person of the year in 2006, it confirmed that Web 2.0 has turned traditional media content and the economics of the media business upside down.

In this playground, content can be generated and distributed in seconds, while YouTube and MySpace, two companies that successfully exploited the new medium, were established and then acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of a few years.

The question is whether such success is sustainable.

Can Web 2.0 technologies—largely applied only in a social sphere—be used to make business more efficient and effective?

Evidence among the growing number of businesses converting to “Enterprise 2.0” (enterprise social software or E2.0) technologies seems encouraging.

What are the applications of Enterprise 2.0?

How can they help us in the key managerial challenges of the twenty-first century, namely knowledge sharing and management, problem solving, innovation, and collaboration? The following tables provides some real-world examples.