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Wednesday 17. of September 2008
Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 – Just two sides of a coin?
Tags:Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0     By: By: Tayyaba Khalil
Posted in Enterprise 2.0

Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are two very popular ideas right now.  IT experts are greatly discussing the two terms these days and are in the process of defining them, as they are not clearly defined yet.  The term Web 2.0 was introduced in 2004 by Tim O’Reilly to revolutionize web development by introducing web applications development that is rich and interactive, while being efficient and economical at the same time. The term Enterprise 2.0 was introduced by Professor Andrew MacAfee of Harvard Business School in 2006 to describe an enterprise business model based on Web 2.0. Are the two terms identical? Many people think that Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are similar terms. Let’s analyze both of them and see whether the two terms are similar or not.

Kevin Mullens from MIT on the blog, A Technical Manager’s Perspective, explains the difference between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. He had also the same concept of Enterprise 2.0 as other people have – Enterprise 2.0 is Web 2.0 in the Enterprise. However, he now has a better understanding of the two terms and believes that Web 2.0 is not Enterprise 2.0. In his post, Web 2.0 is not Enterprise 2.0, he explains the two terms as:

Web 2.0 sites, applications and widgets are geared to drive eyeballs and traffic to their sites while most Enterprise Applications do not have this requirement; instead most Enterprise applications have a finite number of users, and most users do not have a choice to use other applications. 

Enterprise 2.0 is about the Business and is about providing solutions for Business. When I think of Enterprise 2.0 solutions now, I think of tools and solutions usually delivered via Web Services, with much more collaboration built into the tools and solutions. This is similar to many Web 2.0 solutions, however most Enterprise 2.0 solutions require security and authentication which is another complication to deal with.

So what does it mean to deliver Web Services like solutions with more collaboration? I think it is different for every application. Some applications like blogs and wiki's already have collaboration built in, however most do not, so we need to analyze were collaboration and social computing could be beneficial to the solution that we are trying to solve.

Kevin believes that Web 2.0 technologies are for commercial use and Enterprise 2.0 technologies are for corporate use. Some Web 2.0 applications like Flickr and MySpace can also be used by enterprises to manage some organizational tasks. In this perspective, we can say that Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are interrelated terms.  Andrew Filev on the Project Management 2.0 blog gives the same definition of two terms. He describes the two terms in his post, The Key Difference Between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0, as:

I suppose that the key difference between Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is in the side that benefits from the technology utilization. On one hand, there are applications designed for consumers and primarily used by consumers. On the other hand, these applications are sometimes used for a company’s needs.

Web 2.0 technologies were designed for consumers’ everyday use. Let’s take a look at Flickr, MySpace, or thousands of other sites made for the personal use of people. These services are mostly free and are made for people to share their photos, thoughts, contacts, interests and what not. People get personal benefit from using such a community and socializing. Therefore sites like Flickr represent Web 2.0. However, these sites can sometimes be used for business purposes, if a company needs to share files on the Web, for example.  This can be a great opportunity to reach its existing and potential customers, get closer to them and therefore keep them more satisfied. If this is the case, you can call it an example of Enterprise 2.0, as the company benefits from using a community site.

In my opinion, the two terms are closely related to each other. Enterprise 2.0 is an extension of Web 2.0 and the basic philosophy of the two terms is similar. Their tools and technologies are also the same. The only difference is who is using these technologies – an enterprise or common users. If a Web 2.0 application is being used by an enterprise, then it is Enterprise 2.0. Since both of the terms are in the process of development, we can say that both overlap each other. As more and more development will take place in this domain, we can expect that both terms, Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0, will be established as independent paradigms.

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