Surveys Point to Web 2.0 Potentials for Internet Businesses
October 10th, 2007 Posted in NewsWeb 2.0 may be a step further for internet businesses when well conceptualized and used. This was suggested recently in a research conducted by Avenue A/ Razorfish, a web design firm specializing on interactive services.
In their latest study entitled, Digital Design Outlook, Web 2.0 is starting to dominate the mainstream of internet services today where it finds its way into majority of online web users. The study clearly delineates that there is more to banner ads and well-conceptualized websites than most advertisers and publishing companies think.
Interactivity seems to attract the bulk of intent users these days. RSS feeds and websites that enables comments on products and services are just two features that distinguish web 2.0 websites from other websites. This explains why in the survey, most online publishers are shown to have adopted the interactive features available through web 2.0.
According to the Razorfish survey, 41 percent of web consumers write their own blogs while 59 percent customize their own homepages. Blogging, even creating your own website, among others, are just two of the things that have led internet users to prefer the more interactive of websites than their “drier” counterparts.
The study continues to validate the benefits of web 2.0 to today’s web entrepreneurs across industries. The media and entertainment industry, for instance, has benefited from the interactive features of web 2.0. The study shows a sharp 67 percent of web consumers logging in to YouTube just to watch a video even as 70 percent of respondents read blogs regularly.
It was also disclosed in the study that 85 percent of internet users watch a movie preview online before watching the film at a movie house. Fifty-eight percent of Ipod owners and movie lovers are also revealed in the study to have downloaded from iTunes or ordered films from Netflix/Blockbuster. The boob tube has also found its match with the web 2.0 upsurge, as 71 percent of web consumers have watched at least one TV show online.
The catch for retail websites is that while customer preferences for web 2.0 features escalate to levels one cannot just dismiss, retail websites must do more than just posting non-interactive advertorial appeals. Moreover, 54 percent of web consumers begin product search at general search engines in contrast with the 30 percent of users starting at e-commerce sites.
As the presence of web 2.0 in cyberspace becomes even more felt than in the past decade, online companies are now feeling more pressured than ever to meet consumer demands. The urgency seems to rise everyday as another survey indicates.
Earlier this year, Booz Allen Hamilton in the United Kingdom concluded in a survey that the web 2.0 phenomenon has over 41 percent of internet users in the U.K hooked up with it. As an interactive and participatory electronic medium, it has held customers to web 2.0-rich websites like Flickr, YouTube, and MySpace, where web visitors are allowed to exchange information and ideas with other visitors as well.
If there is one thing that web 2.0 promises, it is that both businesses and consumers can benefit from it: for website owners, it means more customers; for consumers, it means freedom to innovate and exchange information in the interactivities of cyberspace.
