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Web 2.0 technologies are gaining acceptance in a wide variety of venues.  Noted analyst and journalist, Dion Hinchcliffe has identified leading Web 2.0 software vendors and applications as they apply to enterprise applications.  Most note-worthy of his observations is the change in attitude for large enterprises evaluating participatory web components such as blogs and wikis. 

"We are past the early adopter phase. A survey of Enterprise 2.0 conference attendees that I gave back in 2006 (when it was called the Collaborative Technologies conference) resulted in only three people out of nearly 100 saying they had “ready access to blogs and wikis” at their workplace. This year the same crowd survey resulted in over two-thirds of attendees present reporting that they now have them within easy reach. This jibes well with my contacts with clients across a broad swath of industries from mid-Western banks, hospitals, government agencies, consumer products, and insurance companies that have been rolling them out internally. This also correlates with a broader survey I conducted on Facebook a few months ago. While emergent, social, freeform collaboration (aka Enterprise 2.0), hasn’t hit the early majority yet, it’s poised to from all indications." (Dion Hinchcliffe - Enterprise 2.0 Lively conversation driving change - ZDNet June 16, 2008 )

IMAGE (c) ZDNet - Click Image to visit the full story by Dion Hinchcliffe on ZDNet

Back when it was called the "Architecture of Participation" it was easier to identify what was and what was not part of the latest era of online publishing.  Since then it got a cooler name, "Web 2.0" (thanks Tim O'Reilly!), and hundreds of start-ups have come and gone, but the fundamentals have stayed the same.  Online Architectures of Participation, The New Web, Web 2.0, etc., all convey a higher level of interaction and interoperability. 

It is still not clear to many publishers, business owners, website admins, and other interested parties, exactly which portions have true business value, and which are going to go the way of color fax machines. 

CRM Magazine this month released an article that played to some of these questions, and being the good people they are, they highlighted Near-Time as one of the platforms that is actually bringing business value, and validation to the elusive Web 2.0 space. 

  Titled The Second Coming of Web 2.0, this article surfaces many of the questions professionals have had about Web 2.0 deployments and what they mean for business. 

Our own CEO, Reid Conrad was quoted in this article - for your reference these and other highlights follow.  To access this article directly GO HERE . 

Highlights...

Cliché or not, 2.0 is useful shorthand for indicating a break with old ways of doing things; Web 2.0 is a major topic -- and so by extension is CRM 2.0, the use of Web 2.0 technologies to improve customer experience and CRM system efficiency. CRM magazine isn't above leveraging this concept -- consider our recent cover story, for example ("It's All Coming 2.0gether," December 2007), or any of a number of articles we've run since. But what's beyond the notation? What exactly is "Web 2.0," anyway?

There are several definitions -- and there's a lot of "I know it when I see it" involved -- but the most common ones revolve around social media. As William Band, vice president and principal analyst for business process and applications at Forrester Research, describes the trend in his March 2008 paper, "The CRM 2.0 Imperative," "[t]he social Web...includes fast-growing peer-to-peer (P2P) activities like blogging, RSS, file sharing, open-source software, podcasting, search engines, and user-generated content." Other 2.0 technologies include wikis, social networking sites and services, and even tiny content-delivery systems known as widgets. Combined with more-established technologies such as instant messaging, email, and forums, these are the tools that enable the creation of distributed communities built around common interests and goals, whether it's socializing, commenting on cricket teams, sharing a passion for theater, or forming a user group to swap software-development tips. This phenomenon has transformed the Web from a source of canned information, static messages, and banner-ad bombardment to a destination of sorts where people can interact with one another in the manner of their choosing.

Reid Conrad, the chief executive officer of social networking platform provider Near-Time , finds that the user-based genesis of Web 2.0 means his clients are usually familiar with one or more aspects of social computing. "Generally, [clients] have worked with individual enterprise 2.0 applications -- blogs, wikis, and such -- but haven't tied them together," he says. "Early users, not surprisingly, were IT professionals. Now we're seeing more line-of-business personnel -- many of our customers are Web 2.0 -- savvy and competent."

The Real Business 2.0

Despite this emerging familiarity, Web 2.0 fundamentally remains a new way of doing business -- in fact, maybe this is Business 2.0. "The traditional way our [users] interact with prospects is email; they have to change that old habit," Conrad says, adding that they have to think about when to use email, and why. Similarly, they must utilize the social environment to put information and content in the right place at the right time.

"We're finding organizations that more and more want to interact in any given format," Conrad says. "You have different forms of interaction for different purposes. Put executives in a wiki format and expect them to produce content? Well, good luck. But those same execs would be very comfortable participating in a forum." That represents a change to the idea of building valuable content: It has to be done continuously, in a living forum, instead of just creating a deliverable for several months down the line.

The Internet has opened up a whole new world to golf enthusiasts, but also to golf pros, and it would be hard to find many who have taken advantage more than Jeff Ritter, who has been providing instruction at the ASU Karsten Golf Course in Tempe since 2000. [from 3/28/08 Arizona Republic article Many golfers looking online for lessons ]

Jeff currently operate 2 sites on Near-Time, his corporate website Jeff Ritter Golf and his subscription-based golf instruction site Golf by Design .  Capitalizing on his success, plans were just confirmed for a third site on the publishing and collaboration platform, My Golf by Design.  The new site, expected to launch in June, will allow subscribers to upload video of their golf swing and receive online lessons and consultation from Jeff.

"I've been shocked by the response," said Ritter, who also writes for two golf magazines as a result of his postings and has seen sales of his golf instruction book climb. "We have so many good instructors in the Valley, and that creates a lot of competition for instruction, so to attract clients from outside the area is a nice bonus and at the same time gives our golf community valuable exposure."

Leading technical publisher, O'Reilly Media has launched an interactive online community around their upcoming title iPhone Hacks - Tips & Tools for Unlocking the Power of Your iPhone and iPod Touch . 

Launched on Near-Time Premium, this site offers iPhone enthusiasts an opportunity to gain advanced access to hacks, tips, and tricks to make their iPhone experience even better.  Members of this community site can make comments, participate in forum conversations, and help author the book by submitting their own hacks. 

A free 30-day trial is available on the site.  Subscriptions to the site are $5.99 per month or $24.99 per year. 

Is the "Musification" of Publishing Imminent? 

In this Beyond the Book "Extra" - presented in anticipation of the 30th annual meeting of the Society of Scholarly Publishing beginning May 28 in Boston, host Christopher Kenneally examines whether current "packaging" trends in the music industry (think iTunes) will make their way into the publishing world. 

Taking on the questions are executives from two leading solutions providers for book and journal publishers - John Sack, Director and Associate Publisher of HighWire Press , and Joel Bush, Director of Publishing and Media at Near-Time .  Both companies are recent Copyright Clearance Center RightsConnect Partners. 

Listen to the interview HERE.

Cannot find Image Contentnation.com , an online community of social media enthusiasts focused on developing a new book on social media, was launched earlier this week at the annual Buying and Selling eContent conference [conference wiki ] in Scottsdale, Arizona by content industry expert John Blossom, President of Shore Communications, Inc., a leading consulting and research company servicing the electronic publishing industry. Mr. Blossom is the author of an upcoming book on social media to be published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. using materials developed on Contentnation.com by Mr. Blossom and its community members.

The book being developed on Contentnation.com, to be entitled Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes our Work, Our Lives and Our Future, focuses on the broadening impact of social media as its availability through online publishing technologies enables both individuals and major institutions such as corporations and governments to communicate more influentially without using traditional media outlets. By Mr. Blossom's calculations based on recent market research there are now 73 million people worldwide using social media to influence others, a number approaching the population of Egypt, the world's 15th largest nation.

Contentnation.com offers free membership for those would like to create content and makes the developing content of the Content Nation book available on a free basis in Web page format.

Contentnation.com is being hosted by Near-Time, Inc., a leading provider of social media publishing technologies. The Near-Time publishing platform combines the capabilities of wikis, weblogs, forums, tagging, bookmarking, embedding content and other key social media publishing technologies with easy-to-use features and sophisticated administrative features that enable the rapid development of highly valuable social media for enterprise, ad-supported and premium online communities. "The Contentnation.com Web site is an excellent example of how our integrated social media publishing technologies can enable the rapid construction of many forms of highly valuable content," said Reid Conrad, CEO of Near-Time, Inc. "Near-Time has worked closely with Mr. Blossom to help make the Content Nation project a success and has benefited from his insights into leading publishing technologies."

Web 2.0 extends to mobile devices with the release of Near-Time Connection

Members of Near-Time spaces can now access content and participate in the community from their smart phone using Near-Time Connection.  This newly available feature is optimized for phone browsers and gives users full read, download, and comment access.  

For publishers, this extends the availability of content and community interaction beyond simple web access.  Community members can stay up-to-date on discussions and developments from their iPhone, BlackBerry, Treo, or other smart phone device.  Visit Near-Time for a complete Connection feature tour --> Near-Time Connection.

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Members of this space can access the mobile version by clicking the "Mobile Device" link in the right-hand sidebar. 

With the release of Connection, the company also announced that they are bringing Web 2.0 content and community interaction to homepages everywhere with the addition of an iGoogle gadget.  iGoogle users can access and participate in their community directly from the iGoogle homepage. 

Read more in the article from Publishers Weekly
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The trade book publishing industry is a complicated and competitive marketplace.  This is not news.  The news is that the landscape is changing and mandating change in this centuries old business.  Traditional publishing companies are finding themselves in competition with (product) channels and information sources that weren't even on the radar screen 1, 5 or 10 years ago.  This is great for consumers, authors, and believe it or not, great for publishers! 

Innovative publishers are driving innovation and leveraging Web 2.0 technologies to differentiate their product, increase publishing profit margins, and develop a long-term relationship with their readers.  In many cases, they are turning a one-time book purchase into monthly or annual recurring subscription revenue.  

In her Book Business Magazine article titled Increasing Sales, One Chapter at a Time Janet Spavlik makes a great case for this evolution as it pertains to Professional Publishers --

While professional books have built-in market of readers, they attract a larger number of titles and demand that professional publishers do a better job of differentiating their products. 

As I see it, there are several key factors to successfully bridge print and digital:
(3 here, more will follow)

Print and Online content should be complimentary - Releasing content in both print and online forms is not a canibalistic play - it is a differentiation play.  Print has certain inherent values that online cannot emulate - I hate the example, but everyone will tell you you can't read your computer in the restroom.  Likewise, online content can have many values that print cannot.  If done correctly, making content available online also makes it searchable, and gives the reader the opportunity to organize the content in ways that best suit their needs.  Effectively leveraging these diverse mediums in a complimentary fashion can not only improve the reader's experience, they can add value and drive revenue.  

Ideal Scenario: Back-cover copy drives print customer to the updated version of a book they purchased online. Customer uses a discount code provided by the publisher (for book owners) to access the online content. Customer appreciates the online experience (improved ability to discover relevant, updated content, etc.) and becomes a monthly (or yearly) subscriber to the online property. You've just extended the life of the content and built the foundation for a direct relationship with your reader.

Give away (some of) your content - Free content drives online discoverability.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a riddle that is constantly changing.  One thing that remains constant in the SEO universe is that quality content drives search engine's ability to find you.  This should equate to the online version of flipping through the pages of a book in a brick and mortar bookstore.  Give your readers a taste of the book, let them see that a vibrant community is coming together around the topic and they will want to be part of it.  

Ideal Scenario: The online version of your book is partially public and partially private ($). An interested reader visits Google to find information on the topic of your book and finds the online version of your book. It is apparent by the number of comments and other things happening around the site that it is engaging and people are into it. Reader joins the site on a monthly basis and becomes a direct customer.

Print and Online should have unique content / qualities - Although it is not always the case, availability of content in two forms can be canibalistic.  It is recommended that the print edition have certain content that is not available in the online edition, and visa versa.  Complimentary products present a unique and effective method of cross-promotion that, when done correctly, can dramatically increase profits.  

Ideal Scenario: Print customers are driven to the online version of the book because of your great back cover copy. Something along the lines of "The online edition includes 8 chapters that aren't in this book" or "Join the online community for this book and access 8 more chapters" (hopefully yours is better than mine). Customer visits the site, samples the content, and joins the site. Not only have you increased revenues on the title, you now have a direct relationship with this customer.

Spotlight on selling content online with Near-Time Premium

Near-Time Premium is a hosted publishing platform that includes wikis, weblogs, contextual navigation, and other Web 2.0 technologies.  The platform also features a fully integrated eCommerce engine that makes monetizing content and interaction easier than ever before.