Executives in McKinsey’s second Annual(June 2008) survey on the topic of Web 2.0 technologies were asked which of web 2.0 tools they would be using for their businesses and what was their satisfaction level with these tools. The results showed an increasing trend in investment in web 2.0 technologies and integration of these at a wider level. After a period of trial, companies came to a decisive opinion about the benefits of web 2.0 technologies; 21% of the respondents were satisfied with Web 2.0 tools, while 22% expressed clear dissatisfaction and some of the disappointed companies stopped using certain technologies completely. Blogs, RSS, wikis, and podcasts have become more popular. The survey showed that companies used these technologies more for internal than external purposes.

For internal purposes companies have been using these technologies for internal recruiting, developing products or services, enhancing company culture, managing knowledge, training etc. When interfacing with customers they use it to increase customer participation in product development, improvement of customer service, acquisition of new customers in existing markets. For interfacing with suppliers it is used for tapping network of experts, gaining supplier participation, lowering of purchasing costs etc. (McKinsey, 2008)

According to a news paper article published in The Birmingham post (2008) banks were encouraged to embrace web 2.0 technologies to really move forward. According to Mr.Davend Lavenda, vice-president of marketing and product strategy at Worklight, banks had a lot of pressure to come up with new business models that would meet the current customer needs; In this regard web 2.0 tools like personalized homepages, social networks, RSS, would give financial services firms a competitive advantage.

A report published by “Celent” concluded that although online banking is providing a diverse array of services but their appearance is very outdated for the current web 2.0 driven environment.

Health communication can also be revolutionized by web 2.0 technology; Health educators can interact with the people easily, leading to messages and ideas that are more refined and relevant to the end users. Groups can be set up on various sites like facebook and myspace, users can then congregate on these groups to discuss ideas, raise funds etc. Groups on these sites are arranged category wise, so it can be easier for health educators to reach people who were inaccessible before. Podcasts are being used by the American Public Health Association to give information on pandemic flu preparedness; similarly others can join in to spread awareness about other health issues.

Teachers in schools are also being urged to adopt this technology, but a survey revealed that they were split about the benefits of using these tools. Paul Kelley, Monkseaton High School headteacher described web as a great resource. He felt that” Web 2.0 has a part to play in making a contribution to education and we need to keep up with new developments.”

University’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, Gary Brown feels that it’s the era of web 2.0 and higher education needs to enter it. He feels it’s time to move to the next generation of online learning in a Web 2.0 or Learning 2.0 world

Reference List
Hanson,C. et al(2008).Integrating Web 2.0 in Health Education Preparation and Practice. American Journal of Health Educaton, 39 .Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5028594903

Mckinsey&Company. (2008). Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey Results. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Business_Technology/BT_Strategy/Building_the_Web_20_Enterprise_McKinsey_Global_Survey_2174

Musser,J. &O’Reilly,T. (n.d.). Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://oreilly.com/catalog/web2report/chapter/web20_report_excerpt.pdf

O’Reilly,T. (n.d.). What Is Web 2.0.Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Teachers Told to Keep Up to Speed with Internet.(2008,September 4).The Journal (Newcastle, England) , Retrieved August 23, 2009 from Questia, 23 Aug. 2009 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5028926105>.

Web 2.0 Is the Way Forward for Online Banking; E-BUSINESS. (2008, August 5). The Birmingham Post (England), p. 20. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5028381520

In designing a website, following disciplines can be used: animation, authoring, communication design, corporate identity, graphic design, human-computer interaction, architecture, interaction, photography, search engine optimization and typography.  Technologies like Markup languages (XHTML and XML), Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL), Client-side scripting (such as JavaScript and VBScript), Server-side scripting (such as PHP and ASP), Database technologies (such as MySQL) can be utilized. Website is made up of web pages; these may contain information about a particular subject etc. The website may be static or dynamic, allowing interaction. While designing a website, it is important to keep the content, usability, appearance and visibility in mind.

With increased competition online, it’s important to design as attractive websites as possible; one way to do this is to utilize the flash technology. Using flash makes a website more professional looking and user friendly, it presents plain textual information in a much easy format with the help of easy navigation and imagery.Flash is also adaptable to other technologies, making it more popular, it can work well with various platforms like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Punch Software AS4000, CorelDraw, Freehand, and PageMaker etc. Flash enabled videos, flash intros, flash advertisements and flash logo can definitely make the website more attractive. All these features help in increased traffic flow to the website.

With the increasing usage of internet mobile phones, it has become important for website designers to create websites that are easily loadable on mobile phones, look as attractive as they do on PC’s and also function well.

While designing a website it is also important to design it in a manner that increases Search Engine optimization. For this it is important to implement an internal linking strategy that enhances the way spiders crawl the website and increase the Google page rank. Spiders work from top left to bottom right, and if tables are present they start from the top left table, scan its contents and move on to the next table so on and so forth. In case the website is designed using tables and not CSS, and a left hand navigation table is present followed by a table containing the main content of the website, the spider will read the top table and then skip the rest moving away from the home page. It will not come back until hitting the home page link. To rectify this, the navigation table should be either placed left to the content or an empty table should be placed on the top left, followed by the content table and then a left aligned navigation table. This way the full benefit of the key word could be utilized. (Nisbet 2008)

Some of the latest trends identified by Smashing Magazine for 2009 include:

Using PNG transparency to make the background stand out more, thus making the site more attractive. This can also be used to place emphasis on a headline or an important announcement.

Second Generation of Pop-ups, modal boxes (dialog windows) provide a user-friendly alternative to classic JavaScript windows and support users by focusing their attention on the most important area of the website. These are triggered by some user action like logging in and appear on top of the main content.

With more people having access to broad band internet, loading of heavy material has become somewhat a non-issue, exploiting this opportunity the designers are using media blocks (for videos and screencasts). With this method the users can understand the material more easily and quickly.

Reference List

Dare, D., (n.d.). Introduction to website design. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1811228

Hidden Brains. (n.d.). Flash – A Value Addition Technology for Website Designing. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.hiddenbrains.com/article-flash-a-value-addition-technology-for-website-designing.html

Synavpse(2009). Web Development and Flash: For the Right Blend. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/web-development-and-flash-for-the-right-blend-1149894.html

Nisbet,P.,.(2008). Advanced SEO Techniques: Website Design, Internal Page Rank and Nofollow. Retrieved August 23, 2009 from http://www.qsoftvietnam.com/links/website-promotion/seo-techniques-website-design-pagerank-nofollow/

Smashing Editorial. (2009).Web Design Trends for 2009. Retrieved August 23, 2009 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/14/web-design-trends-for-2009/