The battle to integrate Web 2.0 tools into day-to-day business practices will continue to be a significant issue for companies, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) new technology forecasts.
As a term, Web 2.0 has been in existence since 2003. It was coined to describe new ways of social interaction and sharing information in different ways, such as blogs, wikis, widgets, social networks, mashups and bookmarking. The distinguishing characteristic from previous web technologies is interaction.
The PwC report points to one problem with social networking platforms - much of the activity on the consumer web is frivolous and some of the companies experimenting with social software seem preoccupied with the superficial aspects of it.
According to Ciarán Kelly, head of performance improvement consulting at PwC, both sides of Web 2.0 need to be mixed. Instant messaging could take care of the more “small talk” aspects of communication and sharing.
“There is a huge amount of noise in terms of the amount of information people are being hit by with BlackBerrys, voicemail, IM, webmail and so on. With so much communications incoming it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees. I think what Web 2.0 is attempting to do is distil that noise into information that is relevant to you.”
PwC has been using Web 2.0 technologies - specifically internal blogs - to solicit ideas and suggestions for how to make the company a better place to work. Previously, an e-mail would have been circulated. However, the nature of blog entries means that ideas are developed more organically.
Kelly underlines the importance of being able to share information quickly and organically by positing a scenario where government could use Web 2.0 tools for a procurement strategy. For example, if a department had to buy watercoolers, PCs, telephony and so on, it could informally set up a collaboration mechanism across all departments asking who else had bought similar items and how much they had paid for them.
“We do have clients who are using the social networking side of things, similar to . . . intranets, to share this type of information, particularly around procurement. Considering the economic environment we’re in that’s a very powerful tool.
“If you actually introduced an information-sharing method like you can do with Web 2.0 facilities, results will come a lot quicker - and they are real results.”
According to Forrester Research, enterprise spending on social networking alone is forecast to rise by 66 per cent annually from 2007 to 2013.
It also said 51 per cent of global 2000 companies expect to buy Web 2.0 tools in 2008 as they start to see Web 2.0’s media promise as an additional communications channel for types of information exchange less easily facilitated by other media.
But will Ireland see similar increases in the adoption of these new communications techniques? And will the methods of how companies interact with and share information be very different by 2013?
According to Kelly there will be a number of drivers, one being Ireland’s relatively young population and the amount of time wasted on rummaging through e-mail detritus.
“This tech would bring cost reduction and efficiencies. It will require a level of investment that might be difficult in the current financial outlook, but it would be justifiable.
UK retail sales values fell 2.2% on a like-for-like basis, from October 2007, when they had risen 1.0%. Total sales were lower than a year ago for the first time since April 2005.
As in previous months, food and drink was the only sector to show sales significantly up on a year ago. Clothing and footwear remained poor and often discount-driven, despite colder and much wetter weather than last October. Furniture and homewares fell further below year-earlier levels, despite further discounts and promotions.
Discounts and promotions continued but often failed to tempt customers unless they perceived value or the purchases filled a need.
Non-food non-store sales in October were 16.6% higher than year ago. Online sales fell on the days after the banking crisis hit, as consumers were anxious about their financial outlook.
Online retail sales will rise to £13.16 billion in the last quarter of the year, representing a 15% rise year-on-year, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.
This figure is equivalent to £215 being spent online by each person in the UK.
The predicted sales growth is a marked slowdown from the 54 per cent increase enjoyed by retailers online last year.
For the last quarter of the year, sales of clothing and footwear online is expected to rise 25 per cent year on year to £1.27 million. Sales of beer, wine and spirits will be worth £233 million.The biggest spend online is expected to fall on Monday December 8, when sales could be worth up to £320 million.
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IMRG chief executive James Roper said: “British shoppers will beat the crunch with internet prices this Christmas, spending more than £1 billion each week in the run-up. The internet is well established as one of consumers’ most powerful economic weapons against tough times.
“Retailers and suppliers will be under extreme pressure to price competitively this year, so there will be a lot of volatility – and fantastic bargains – that the internet uniquely enables canny shoppers to find and grab before anyone else gets the chance
Video sharing site YouTube will stream full-length TV shows and films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s archives, in a bid to boost ad revenues for its parent company Google.
All films and TV shows will be free to watch, with ads running alongside the video. The deal will see MGM set up a number of content channels within YouTube.
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One channel will begin by showing full-length action films like “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven” alongside clips from popular movies like “Legally Blonde.”
Last month, YouTube struck a similar partnership with CBS to run full-length archived shows, including “Star Trek,” “Young and the Restless” and “Beverly Hills 90210.”
 Until recently, YouTube videos were predominantly short clips of ten minutes or less.
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The company has been experimenting with full-length shows for some months with Time Warner’s HBO and CBS’s Showtime cable networks, as well as the BBC in the UK.
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The new partnerships put YouTube in more direct competition with Hulu, the online video site owned by News Corp and General Electric’s NBC Universal.
Hulu features up-to-date full-length shows from News Corp’s Fox networks, NBC and CBS.
The Bank of England has made a shock one-and-a-half percentage point cut in UK interest rates to 3%, the lowest level since 1955.
The size of the cut - the most dramatic since 1981 - signals the Bank’s concern the UK is heading for a long recession, the BBC’s economics editor says.
It follows an emergency cut in rates last month from 5% to 4.5%.
However, banks are expected to take their time deciding whether to pass on the cut to mortgage holders and savers.
The cut was followed by the European Central Bank lowering its eurozone interest rates from 3.75% to 3.25%.
The interest rate cuts come as the IMF predicts that developed economies will contract for the whole of the coming year for the first time since World War Two.
