So tonight I am sitting back thinking about all of my sites. In the past four to six months I have gone from not having a single site and struggling to use Wordpress to having a wide portfolio and releasing my first WordPress Mu site. WordPress IMHO is the best tool for any developer. Making sitewide changes could not be easier, and with exec-PHP making the flexible front-end for you web app could not be easier. This is why I now use WordPress for all my sites.

So just to take a bit of stock my sites are:

• http://www.jobfeedr.com – this little treasure is now using Wordpress as the CMS. The site is wonderful, it gets job feeds from a number of different sites and posts them to other channels. Soon the ability to add ads manually will be made aviliable.
• http://www.rsstotwitter.com – RSS to Twitter is a tool that takes RSS feeds and posts them to Twitter. The difference is the ease of it compared to the other ones which require OpenID. RSS to Twitter just needs to improve it’s page rank. RSS to Twitter also uses WordPress as the CMS.
• http://www.toolnames.com and http://www.CreateMy.com.au – Toolnames was the orginal site which went through several stages, first it was a site to call someone a tool, then it became a toolname generator, this proved to be popular and then came the dot com dot au version of toolnames known as createmy.com.au. Both Toolnames and CreateMy have recently had WordPress added as a CMS.
• http://www.whyitwas.com – My first ever WordPress site. This little ripper has been my one site where I have used WordPress as a blog.

There is some domains I have but there isn’t a site up for them yet.

All this time Michael Phelps tried to claim it was his routine that casued him to eat all of the below.

Now we know the truth

Twitter

You want to post something to you Twitter account? For instance you might want your followers to know when your site has been used and what the result was e.g. you site might want to announce each time someone signs up for your service.

The answer is real easy, use cURL and PHP to update your profile. For RSS to Twitter we use the below script.

PHP to Twitter Script

To use the below script call the postToTwitter function with a 140 charter message (if it is over that Twitter will truncate it for you), the user-name (or email) you want to use and the password.

Hi,

I just signed a petition asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to include a representative from the African Union at the G20 – a group of leaders of the world’s twenty largest economies – summit in the UK this spring. This will be a key summit for shaping the road the world takes out of the financial crisis, and it’s crucial that the world’s poorest people be a part of that process.

I hope that you’ll join me in taking action here: http://www.one.org/international/includeafrica/?rc=includeafricataf

This is an exceptional opportunity to get a seat at the table for developing nations. If they play a role in remaking the world’s financial systems, it’s significantly more likely that they will be able to reap the rewards of those systems. That’s a big step in helping people work their way out of poverty.

Thanks

Today while at work I was writing up about Web 2.0 and I came across a list of key indicators of whether a Web 2.0 app will be a success. While not all need to be met it is of benefit.

1. The product fits the needs of an underserved niche – i.e. there is a niche market which is after something which currently doesn’t exist in the form they desire. This makes totally sense.
2. The site has the ability to generate natural search results. Pretty much the site is in the top page rank on Google and Live.
3. The service allows users to make a profit. For instance eBay sellers can sell items, same with iStockPhoto.
4. It is free or significantly cheaper then previously. This is true as so many sites are free subscriptions that a site charging would get no traffic. The idea that the internet should be all free has led to the demise of a lot of good websites as there was not enough revenue from advertising.
5. The site should be truly viral. This means that the site is what is created by the users, not the webmasters. For instance YouTube is so popular because of the user generated videos without them it would just be a video stock library.
6. Ability to leverage another’s userbase. Basically tapping into someone else’s users to build yours. An example is Skype being distributed with KaZza.
7. You are worthy of news outlets writing about you. People have a reason to write about you. For instance Twitter is being written about all over the net because it is so popular without a revenue model.

This article highlights some of the ways which a company could use Twitter in it workplace. I know with our site JobFeedr that we not only use Twitter as apart of our business model but as a way to respond to the community, post updates, and get advise.

Sourced From: The New York Times

Today we have a guest post by Sarah Milstein, a Web 2.0 consultant, on five ways to use Twitter in your career or in your business. — Marci

Posts from Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey

Twitter is a simple messaging service that you’ve either heard about a lot or not at all. Either way, it’s a fun and useful tool, well worth trying if you want to reach potential and existing customers, employees or employers.

Like blogging, Twitter lets you write messages that other people can read. Unlike blogging, Twitter limits your messages to 140 characters. (The previous two sentences absorbed exactly 140 characters.) Readers can choose to receive your Twitter updates (sometimes called “tweets”) on their phones, via IM, RSS or on the Web. The brevity, combined with the variety of delivery systems, make Twitter a powerful medium. Here are five ways to harness it:

1. Share ideas. Twitter is often called “micro-blogging,” and as with regular-size blogging, some people use it primarily to share personal information, while others use it for professional reasons.

If you’re interested in the professional possibilities, ignore the Twitter prompt, “What are you doing?” because frankly, the details of your day are banal to people who don’t know you (Proof: my Twitterstream). Instead, note cool work-related things you’ve discovered — a great article, a new Web site or an intriguing idea. Whenever possible, include a link (if it’s too long, use TinyURL to shorten it with one click).

Or share your knowledge. The lexicographer Erin McKean posts neologisms; a group of venture capitalists gives tips to entrepreneurs.

2. Show respect. Another way to share ideas — and your respect for other people in your field — is to “retweet” something interesting somebody else has Twittered. Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media (for which I’m co-writing a research report on Twitter), does this frequently and to great effect. Simply start your message with “Retweeting@username” and then paste in the original message (the @ symbol is the Twitter convention for responding or referring to other users).

3. Build your brand. Zappos, the online emporium known for outstanding customer service, encourages employees to Twitter and to respond to customers who also use the service — increasing the company’s reputation as a friendly place to shop and work. Notably, the chief executive of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, Twitters frequently. Because the company cultivates an un-corporate image, he’s the rare executive who can effectively post personal updates.

4. Engage customers. Run contests, solicit feedback and thank customers for supportive messages. Jetblue does all three. (By the way, JetBlue doesn’t identify the person or people who Twitter under its account, but best practices suggest you should.)

5. Provide customer service. Wesabe, a personal finance site, has long used Twitter to respond to complaints and to let customers know when it’s fixing problems. Comcast doesn’t post, but it does use Twitter to respond to customers who have complained about the company.

How do Comcast and Wesabe know customers are grousing? Twitter’s excellent search feature lets you learn what people are saying about any term — including you, your competitors or your industry. (Oddly, this search feature is different from the relatively useless one at the top of your own Twitter home page.) You can then respond to individuals — as Comcast and Wesabe do — with the @username trick.

Signing up for a Twitter account takes about 15 seconds. If you first want more detail on how the service works, check out the Wikipedia entry or the “Twitter in Plain English” video. Still on the fence? Chris Brogan has 50 good ideas for using Twitter in business.

Finally, no matter how you use it, remember that messages posted to Twitter — even updates you send by phone or IM — reside on the Web in perpetuity, where prospective employers and customers can find them. While 140 characters may not seem like much, they are enough to look unprofessional.

Source: MyCustomer

The ‘i’ economy: Web 2.0 for business in 2008 and beyond

05-Dec-2008

More people than ever are using the internet as a social networking platform and this has had enormous implications for business in 2008. But how many firms are actually doing anything about it and how many even know what to do about it? James Paterson explores this burgeoning area and provides some predictions for 2009.

By James Paterson, Plebble.com

According to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (released in August 2008), nearly every single British adult (93%) aged under 70 who have a degree or equivalent qualification now have access to the Internet in their home. Two-thirds of the all households in the UK have Internet access, a rise of more than 1.2 million since 2007. According to the same figures, 23.5 million adults in the UK (69% of the adult population) use the internet “every day or almost every day”.

What are these 23.5 million people doing every day?

The answer is that, more than ever, people are not only looking for information and content online (as they did during the early stages of mass adoption of the internet in the late 90s and early 2000s), they are now providing it – in the form of reviews, Facebook updates, photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube and blog posts about any subject imaginable, providing an unending commentary on their lives and the things they care about. This is the phenomenon known as ‘Web 2.0′, ’social media’ or ‘the social Web’, and 2008 proves it’s here to stay.

“22% of surveyed companies expressed clear dissatisfaction with Web 2.0 technologies, many saying they have stopped using them as a result.”

James Paterson, Plebble.com

The evidence for this is compelling: according to traffic-ranking website Alexa.com, Facebook is currently the second most visited site in the UK (after Google). An estimated 12.5% of the world’s internet users visited the site yesterday alone. It boasts 120 million active users worldwide – i.e. people who have actually logged into the site within the last 30 days. This is a huge increase from the 7.1 million registered users it had at the beginning of the year.

YouTube is currently the UK’s fifth most-visited site. Nearly 20% of the world’s internet users (264 million people) went on it yesterday.

Interestingly, Blogger.com, a leading blog provider, has become the 14th most visited site in the UK, showing how popular and mainstream blogging has become. An average of 146 million people in the world visit a blog hosted by either Blogger, Word Press or Live Journal each day. Current estimates put the number of blogs in the world at around 186 million, including around 73 million blogs in China. This is up from 70 million blogs at the beginning of the year.

Leading search engines such as Google and Yahoo and technology companies such as Microsoft are also getting in on the act, meaning that 9 of the top 10 most popular UK websites are now either exclusively or in part involved in their users providing content.

So, what does this mean?

Growth of the ‘i’ economy

These changes in the way consumers are using the internet, I would suggest, reflect (or perhaps indeed have caused) the beginnings of a fundamental shift in the dynamic between consumers and businesses. In being able to provide content and information to each other in free and easy-to-create and easy-to-understand formats, consumers are becoming increasingly less receptive to marketing messages being pushed onto them by businesses via ‘vertical’ communication media such as the press, TV, advertising and static Web 1.0 websites. Instead they are pulling information about companies, products and services, more often than not from the most trusted of all sources – each other.

This is the ‘i’ economy – ‘i’ not meaning information or internet, but ‘me’ – it’s all about me and those like me. An example might be helpful. Think of someone wanting to watch a film. The ‘i’ consumer probably no longer studies a film poster or even reads a review in the paper before doing so. He/she will visit a peer-review film site like RottenTomatoes.com, skim a relevant discussion forum and/or search for relevant blogs via Technorati to see what ‘real’ people think about it.

They might visit Wikipedia to find out more factual information and finally download it to their PC via a peer-to-peer file sharing system like BitTorrent or stream it from a site like Watch-movies.net rather than even going to the cinema. All this is a reality for many people in 2008 – and it’s all free, can be done within minutes and, importantly, is all peer-enabled.

What this means for your business

First, the ‘i’ economy is likely to represent an extremely serious assault on your business model, particularly if it in any way relies on providing paid-for content or information. If consumers can get content and information for free, why should they pay for it? But, if they are not paying for it, who will be able to afford to create quality content or host and disseminate reliable information? Google’s unaudited costs just for Q3 of 2008 were nearly US$4 billion. Much of this can be attributed to its vast data centres that index the web and seek to provide over 81% (1.2 billion) of the world’s internet users with reliable information.

I don’t pretend to have a solution to this complex problem. Google seems convinced that the answer lies in advertising – and it certainly seems to be working for them. However, advertising cannot in my view be an applicable revenue stream in every scenario. Perhaps this is something that will be addressed more fully in 2009.

Second, whatever your business, the ‘i’ economy will also have a dramatic effect on how you do business. As above, with consumers now exchanging increasing quantities of information, businesses can less and less hide behind expensive advertising campaigns and brand-building stunts when dealing with consumers. Thanks to price comparison sites, commoditised businesses in particular such as ISPs, mobile phone network operators, utilities providers, banks and insurance companies more than ever before need to ensure they offer competitive prices.

Customer service (one of the few key ways that commoditised businesses can distinguish themselves from competitors) is also firmly under the spotlight with ’service-comparison’ websites such as my own, Plebble.com. CSR and environmental credentials are also becoming easier for consumers to measure, compare and judge. Transparency is the new watch-word – in all aspects of your business.

But, as we reach the end of 2008, how many companies understand this?

Finding their feet

Many of you will probably have spent much of 2008 being told about the importance of transparency, flattening your organisational structures and engaging with consumers on a more peer-to-peer level. But, how many are actually doing anything about it? How many even know what to do about it? Which are the appropriate platforms? What is the appropriate etiquette? Where is the business case for it? As 2008 draws to a close, businesses’ adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and techniques is still piecemeal.

My evidence for this is part anecdotal and part-statistical. During the last month, I have had two separate conversations with high-level communications executives at a leading energy company and a leading telecoms company on this subject. Both acknowledged the clear change in consumer behaviour (outlined above) and their brand’s inevitable need to become more open and transparent as a result at some point in the future.

However, both said they are not ready to do so yet – they have as yet felt no business pressure to do so. In other words, they’ve felt no pain. When their P&L is directly hit by consumers who refuse to buy from a non-transparent, ‘vertically-minded’ company (which both acknowledged will happen soon), that is when their boards will insist on changing business practices – but will it be too late for them by then?

The issues surrounding businesses’ use of Web 2.0 technologies are also well illustrated in the second instalment of McKinsey’s Web 2.0 survey, released in the middle of 2008. This found that only about a third of surveyed companies used blogs, wikis, rss feeds, podcasts and social networking sites. This was an increase on 2007’s figures but only a modest one. The number of companies using peer-to-peer technologies has actually fallen from 37% in 2007 to 18% in 2008. 22% of surveyed companies expressed clear dissatisfaction with Web 2.0 technologies, many saying they have stopped using them as a result.

This may look bleak for proponents of Web 2.0 such as me, but it is important to remember that many Web 2.0 technologies are simply not intended for business use. Social networking, for example, is not a business application. It is, by its nature (and name) social. There is arguably no place for a brand in a social network. Who socialises with Coca Cola?

So, while it is gaining momentum (slowly), business adoption Web 2.0 is still in its infancy and businesses are finding their feet.

Some predictions for 2009…

What about predictions for 2009? I have three:

1. From the consumer side, we will see further moves towards the ‘i’ economy – peer-to-peer content and information sharing will become more important. The economic downturn may actually accelerate this as people look for cheaper alternatives and spend more time at home – online. Watch out too for discussions about VRM (vendor relationship management) – http://projectvrm.net/, arguably the ultimate embodiment of the ‘i’ economy.2. Brands that take the initiative on transparency in early 2009 – listening to what people are saying about them and (importantly) engaging back – will find themselves ahead of the curve and will gain a competitive advantage in so being. Brands that do not do so will start to feel pain as a direct result of others that are taking the initiative.
3. A lot of 2009 will be about platform choice for businesses – businesses finding Web 2.0 platforms that they can use, that give them a clear seat at the table and that have a good business case for their use.

2009 is going to be an interesting year.

James Paterson is co-founder of Plebble.com.

by Josh Catone

For a lot of people, the term “Web 2.0,” ceased to mean anything real a long a time ago. For some, it never really meant anything to begin with. As someone who writes about the so-called second version of the web for a living, I think I’ve held onto the Web 2.0 term as long as I could. But today, “Web 2.0? has officially jumped the shark for me. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop using it — as a blanket term to describe the industry that I write about it can be helpful — but I have to admit that it has now become somewhat of a parody.

Defining Web 2.0 has been something like a fun parlor game for a few years now. There’s a long history of people trying to come up with a unified definition of Web 2.0. But like the elusive theory of everything in physics, a single, agreed-upon definition of what Web 2.0 really means has been hard to come by.

Probably the most widely accepted definition is Tim O’Reilly’s compact definition: “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”

But even O’Reilly’s definition has changed and evolved to get to that point.

So what caused me to finally admit that Web 2.0 has jumped the shark? It was waking up today, and finding a link to this story at PC World, a very mainstream computer publication: Web 2.0 Tactics for Successful Job-Hunting.

Among the “Web 2.0 tactics” that PC World recommends: letters of recommendation, staying current with your skills, and networking. Isn’t that how people have been searching for jobs nearly forever? What the heck is “Web 2.0? about that? The only item on the list that could be even mildly considered to have some sort of tie in with what we generally like to think of as Web 2.0 was “Upgrade your online image,” in which the authors recommend joining relevant online social communities like LinkedIn, and Twitter, blogging, and making sure your profiles at other social sites are clean of college party photos.

In other words: Web 2.0 is now a mainstream marketing term. In reality, Web 2.0 has always been a marketing term. O’Reilly’s company, which owns the trademark on the term, uses it to promote their hugely successful web-focused conference series, for example. But until today, I hadn’t actually seen it applied in a way that so blatantly targets a mainstream audience in an effort to make something rather dull appear more hip (I’m sure it’s happened before, this was just the first time I’ve seen it).

All that said, the confusion over Web 2.0 — whatever it means and however it is now being used — has been helpful.

Last April, I wrote that there really is no such thing as Web 2.0, or Web 3.0 for that matter, there is just the web. “Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 — they don’t really exist. They’re just arbitrary numbers assigned to something that doesn’t really have versions,” I said. “But the discussion that those terms have prompted have been helpful, I think, in figuring out where the web is going and how we’re going to get there; and that’s what is important.”

I think that’s still true, and as long as we continue to have that discussion and attempt to define these nebulous ideas, we’ll continue to get value from the discussion. I wrote in April that instead of telling people I write about Web 2.0, I’d tell them that I “write about the web, what you can do with it now, and what you’ll be able to do with it in the future.” I haven’t done a very good job in keeping with that promise, but I still like the idea.

Today at work we were looking at some awesome Web 2.0 examples and Zuda Comics was one of the examples. The cut through here is users can read, vote and create comics. The site is from DC Comics and is a new digital channel for them to connect with fans.

Pretty cool. Worth a look.

By SALVATORE PARISE , PATRICIA J. GUINAN and BRUCE D. WEINBERG

Sourced from The Wall St Journal

For marketers, Web 2.0 offers a remarkable new opportunity to engage consumers.

If only they knew how to do it.

That’s where this article aims to help. We interviewed more than 30 executives and managers in both large and small organizations that are at the forefront of experimenting with Web 2.0 tools. From those conversations and further research, we identified a set of emerging principles for marketing.

But first, a more basic question: What is Web 2.0, anyway? Essentially, it encompasses the set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects online. That includes blogs, wikis, social-networking sites and other online communities, and virtual worlds.

Millions of people have become familiar with these tools through sites like Facebook, Wikipedia and Second Life, or by writing their own blogs. And a growing number of marketers are using Web 2.0 tools to collaborate with consumers on product development, service enhancement and promotion. But most companies still don’t appear to be well versed in this area.

So here’s a look at the principles we arrived at — and how marketers can use them to get the best results.

Don’t just talk at consumers — work with them throughout the marketing process.

Recovering From Negative Reviews

A Web site can be a marketer’s lifeline with its customers, but what happens when it’s marred with negative reviews and comments? Bruce Weinberg, marketing professor at Bentley University, tells WSJ’s Erin White how to address and recover from poor feedback.

Web 2.0 tools can be used to do what traditional advertising does: persuade consumers to buy a company’s products or services. An executive can write a blog, for instance, that regularly talks up the company’s goods. But that kind of approach misses the point of 2.0. Instead, companies should use these tools to get the consumers involved, inviting them to participate in marketing-related activities from product development to feedback to customer service.

How can you do that? A leading greeting-card and gift company that we spoke with is one of many that have set up an online community — a site where it can talk to consumers and the consumers can talk to each other. The company solicits opinions on various aspects of greeting-card design and on ideas for gifts and their pricing. It also asks the consumers to talk about their lifestyles and even upload photos of themselves, so that it can better understand its market.

A marketing manager at the company says that, as a way to obtain consumer feedback and ideas for product development, the online community is much faster and cheaper than the traditional focus groups and surveys used in the past. The conversations consumers have with each other, he adds, result in “some of the most interesting insights,” including gift ideas for specific occasions, such as a college graduation, and the prices consumers are willing to pay for different gifts.

Similarly, a large technology company uses several Web 2.0 tools to improve collaboration with both its business partners and consumers. Among other things, company employees have created wikis — Web sites that allow users to add, delete and edit content — to list answers to frequently asked questions about each product, and consumers have added significant contributions. For instance, within days of the release of a new piece of software by the company, consumers spotted a problem with it and posted a way for users to deal with it. They later proposed a way to fix the problem, which the company adopted. Having those solutions available so quickly showed customers that the company was on top of problems with its products.

Peter & Maria Hoey

Give consumers a reason to participate.

Consumers have to have some incentive to share their thoughts, opinions and experiences on a company Web site.

One lure is to make sure consumers can use the online community to network among themselves on topics of their own choosing. That way the site isn’t all about the company, it’s also about them. For instance, a toy company that created a community of hundreds of mothers to solicit their opinions and ideas on toys also enables them to write their own blogs on the site, a feature that many use to discuss family issues.

Other companies provide more-direct incentives: cash rewards or products, some of which are available only to members of the online community. Still others offer consumers peer recognition by awarding points each time they post comments, answer questions or contribute to a wiki entry. Such recognition not only encourages participation, but also has the benefit of allowing both the company and the other members of the community to identify experts on various topics.

Many companies told us that a moderator plays a critical role in keeping conversations going, highlighting information that’s important to a discussion and maintaining order. That’s important because consumers are likely to drift away if conversations peter out or if they feel that their voices are lost in a chaotic flood of comments. The moderator can also see to it that consumer input is seen and responded to by the right people within the company.

And, of course, it’s important to make a site as easy to use as possible. For instance, there should be clear, simple instructions for consumers to set up a blog or contribute to a wiki.

Listen to — and join — the conversation outside your site.

Consumers tend to trust one another’s opinions more than a company’s marketing pitch. And there is no shortage of opinions online.

The managers we interviewed accept that this type of content is here to stay and are aware of its potential impact — positive or negative — on consumers’ buying decisions. So they monitor relevant online conversations among consumers and, when appropriate, look for opportunities to inject themselves into a conversation or initiate a potential collaboration.

For example, a marketing manager of a leading consumer-electronics company monitors blogs immediately after a new-product launch in order to understand “how customers are actually reacting to the product.” Other managers keep an eye on sites like Digg.com and Del.icio.us that track the most popular topics on the Web, to see if there’s any buzz around their new products, and whether they should be adjusting, say, features or prices.

In one case, a company found a popular blogger who had spoken highly of the company’s brand. Just prior to launching a new product, the company sent the blogger a free sample, inviting him to review it with no strings attached. The end result: The blogger wrote a favorable review and generated a flood of comments. So the company got nearly free publicity and feedback.

Peter & Maria Hoey

Resist the temptation to sell, sell, sell.

Many marketers have been trained to bludgeon consumers with advertising — to sell, sell, sell anytime and anywhere consumers can be found. In an online community, it pays to resist that temptation.

When consumers are invited to participate in online communities, they expect marketers to listen and to consider their ideas. They don’t want to feel like they’re simply a captive audience for advertising, and if they do they’re likely to abandon the community.

The head of consumer research for a leading consumer-electronics organization created an online community of nearly 50,000 consumers to discuss product-development and marketing issues. One of the key principles of the community, she says, was “not to do anything about marketing, because we weren’t about selling; we were about conversing.”

In short order, community members not only identified what it was they were looking for in the company’s products, but also suggested innovations to satisfy those needs. The company quickly developed prototypes based on those suggestions, and got an enthusiastic response: Community members asked when they would be able to buy the products and if they would get the first opportunity to buy them. They didn’t have to be sold on anything.

Don’t control, let it go.

In an online community, every company needs to find an effective balance between trying to steer the conversation about its products and allowing the conversation to flow freely. In general, though, the managers we interviewed believe that companies are better off giving consumers the opportunity to say whatever is on their minds, positive or negative. Moderators can keep things running smoothly and coherently, but they shouldn’t always keep the conversation on a predetermined track. The more that consumers talk freely, the more a company can learn about how it can improve its products and its marketing.

One marketing executive recalled the first time she let an online community created for a client interact with very little control or moderation, resulting in an animated discussion about the look of the company’s product. The client, with great concern, asked. “Who told them [the consumers] they could do this, that they could go this far?” Of course, when this process resulted in totally new packaging that helped boost sales, the client was ecstatic.

As another executive of a company that creates online communities for clients told us: “You have to let the members drive. When community members feel controlled, told how to respond and how to act, the community shuts down.”

Find a ‘marketing technopologist.’

So who should direct a company’s forays into Web 2.0 marketing? A number of managers identified an ideal set of skills for an executive that go beyond those of a typical M.B.A. holder or tech expert. We coined the term marketing technopologist for a person who brings together strengths in marketing, technology and social interaction. A manager said, “I’d want to see someone with the usual M.B.A. consultant’s background, strong interest in psychology and sociology, and good social-networking skills throughout the organization.”

Foot soldiers need to be carefully selected as well. One large technology company weighs employees’ proven skills to choose writers for blogs that are read by consumers. The company has long used blogs internally to help employees discuss technical issues, products, and company and industry topics. When it decided to use blogs to raise its profile online, it recruited those who had shown the most skill at blogging within the company. The company currently has about 15 employees who blog publicly, mostly on technology trends, and is recruiting more the same way. Meanwhile, the bloggers plan to meet occasionally to share the lessons learned from their experiences.

Embrace experimentation.

One Web 2.0 strategy does not fit all, and sometimes the best way to find out what’s best for a given company is to try some things out and see what happens.

Blogs, wikis and online communities are among the tools that companies are most commonly using for marketing, but there are other ways to reach consumers. Some of the companies we talked with have gotten their feet wet in the online virtual world Second Life, where millions of users interact with each other through avatars. Companies can sell their goods and services and sponsor events in Second Life just as they do in the real world; one sponsored a contest for the best avatar.

Others are considering new ways to use more-familiar tools. For instance, many companies have long used instant messaging on their Web sites to allow shoppers to chat with customer-service representatives. One executive we spoke with said he would like to experiment with allowing consumers to chat with each other as they shop on his company’s site.

—Dr. Parise is an assistant professor of technology, operations and information management at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. Dr. Guinan is an associate professor of technology, operations and information management at Babson College. Dr. Weinberg is chairman of the marketing department and an associate professor of marketing and e-commerce at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. They can be reached at reports@wsj.com.