There is much hype about Web 2.0. So what do the internet users really think? Or rather, what are the corporates doing? Are they using it to its maximum potential and rolling in cash?

Lets look at the current scenarios. In the current landscape of the business environment, almost all office tasks involve online or information technology transactions. The office landscape has been completely modified, and there is nothing companies' management can do but acknowledge the trend.

Some corporates are taking advantage of the currently popular online portals' usefulness. Web 2.0, specifically is very widely used across the workplace. And that increasing popularity has become a cause of alarm to office managements. I mean, do you really want an employee to come to the office to chat with his friends all day and not be productive? In fact, there are offices that have banned chatting and popular marketplaces like eBay from the work arena. But with the surfacing importance of the online tool, should businesses continue curtailing employee usage of such programs?

A study conducted by Forester Research, with a running title "Web 2.0 Social Computing Dresses Up for Business", show that employees highly regard the importance of Web 2.0 tools. According to respondents, access to Web 2.0 enables them to generate, secure and self-publish pertinent data. With the use of the online tool, the Internet is more effectively becoming an instrument for outsourcing knowledge and information. Expertise of professionals is easily shared to others who are in immediate and dire need for information assistance.

A particular question administered to respondents reveal that many employees generally regard social networking, instant messaging, wikipedias, podcasts, RSS and blogs as Web 2.0 tools that are mostly helpful in carrying out office tasks unconventionally. According to the simple poll of study respondents, instant messaging is one Web 2.0 tool that is regarded as ‘substantially valuable'. Podcasting, RSS, wikis and blogs are regarded as tools with ‘moderate value'. Interestingly, social networking is perceived as a tool with ‘limited value'.

This may sound as a vote of confidence to companies that ban social networking sites in their online systems. There is a rising debate among employees and company managements regarding the emerging popularity of social networking. The popularity if sites like Facebook, MySpace and Friendster has been considered as a threat to many firms, which fear that usage of such portals within the workplace might hamper employee productivity.

Incidentally, another research effort from Forester found out that majority of information-technology managers in companies find the rising popularity of Web 2.0 tools as somehow a cause for alarm.

In its study titled "Passionate Employees: The Gateway to Enterprise Web 2.0 Sales", which covered IT managers, it was found that 78% of the respondents feel that employees' widening usage of Web 2.0 are feared of starting up several inappropriate online behaviors among employees. Such respondents cited fear of intellectual property risks, information leakage, computer security threats and online con-compliance as possible problems that may arise from the emergence of Web 2.0 and its wider usage across the office environment.

Perhaps, there is a cause for alarm on the part of the IT managers and the company managements as well. By exposing employees to Web 2.0, there might be risks that they might learn how to be unproductive. On the other hand, the advantage of the tools far offset the risks. With instant messaging, blogs, social networking and RSS, employees would be able to communicate well with the outside world and expand their knowledge and skills. Take an example of a US company that has outsourced its work to India or China, the main mode of communication is by MSN / Yahoo / Skype or GTalk. Work is productive, employees interact with each other and the outsourcer knows that work is being done.

By exposing employees to Web 2.0 tools, they would be provided better and more convenient learning opportunities, that in the end would not only boost their productivity, but make them more competent workers and persons as well. Eventually both sides, the employees and the companies, are in a win/win situation.

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