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Author : G. Hofsink BSc Student Number : S1593463

Email : geert_hofsink@hotmail.com

Date : 04-12-2007

Version : 1.0

Organisation : LogicaCMG Project Leader : ing. J. Huizinga Project Leader : M. Bouwmeester Architect : Drs. O. Nieuwenhuis Educational Institute : University of Groningen Study : MScBA Business&ICT Coordinator : Prof. dr. E. W. Berghout Examiner : Drs. E. Stokking

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The choice to perform this research at LogicaCMG was a well considered one. I already had chosen to do my research in a practical environment. A reason to write my thesis at LogicaCMG is that LogicaCMG delivers ICT services and gives advice about ICT to other organisations and thus connects businesses with ICT. The Working Tomorrow program gives students the opportunity to do, all different kinds of research in the field of ICT and write their dissertation. This means a mix of students is present who are researching the business side or the technical side of ICT. I think this mix is interesting because in the future I, most likely, have to work with on one side the technical people, such as developers, programmers and so on, and on the other side the business people like salespersons, the controller and so on.

Writing this thesis could not be done without help of others. On this way, I would like to thank the supervisors Evert-Jan Stokking and Egon Berghout from the University of Groningen for their feedback, ideas and trust in me. Additionally, I would like to thank Jolanda Huizinga, Marjan Bouwmeester, René Tuinhout, Obbert Nieuwenhuis and Henk Westerink from LogicaCMG, for their guidance, feedback and ideas they have given me.

Furthermore, I thank LogicaCMG Groningen for given me the opportunity to graduate in their organisation and my thanks go to the people who found the time to fill in my survey. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents who always supported me and kept faith in me and my friends and family from whom I always could expect support when needed.

Geert Hofsink

Groningen, 2007

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MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

In this dissertation the contribution of social web applications to the internal collaboration in an organisation, is studied. Social web applications are web based applications with user- generated content, which gives users the opportunity to informally interact, share and meet other users. The two most remarkable characteristics of social web applications in a corporate environment are that they are emergent and non-technical. Social web applications that are being considered in this research are blogs, enterprise search, mashups, online communities, personalized web portals, RSS, tagging, widgets and wikis.

In this study, definitions are given for the social web applications and how such web applications can contribute to the collaboration is explained. The context where social web applications can be applied is also explained by describing the link between these applications and new techniques and applications like RIA, AJAX, SOA, SOAP, REST and the semantic web. Besides that, a short history is given of the web and web applications in a corporate environment. In addition, the support of the management is explained by describing different management perspectives in relation with social web applications.

This research also includes a measurement tool, which can be used to measure the current use of social web applications and the future use. Besides measuring the use of social web applications, also the current contribution and the future contribution of social web

applications to the collaboration is measured. In this research, the measurement tool has the form of a survey, which was send to a sample group of employees of LogicaCMG Groningen.

This sample group is composed by randomly selected employees in each competence of LogicaCMG Groningen.

The response rate of the survey is 38 percent, which means that clear conclusions can be drawn from the outcomes of the survey. Most remarkable outcomes of the survey are that 44 percent of the respondents said they currently are using wikis for work related activities and 28 percent of the respondents are using corporate wikis for work related activities.

Furthermore, 18 percent of the employees are willing to use corporate wikis for work related activities. Based on the responses it can be argued that wikis are the most popular social web applications and widgets are the less popular. Reason for the popularity of wikis can be that wikis are used by almost 50 percent for private use, hence most employees are familiar with this web application. Further, the unpopularity of widgets can be explained by the fact that

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social web applications lies higher than the desired use of social web applications and this implies that employees already are using social web applications for work related activities, which proves the emergent character of social web applications.

In this survey, the contribution of social web applications to the collaboration inside an organisation is also measured. With hypotheses testing is measured whether social web applications currently contribute to the collaboration, whether social web applications in the future can contribute to the collaboration or employees are willing to contribute to the content of social web applications. There is not enough statistical evidence to defend that currently social web applications do contribute to the collaboration. However, there is enough statistical evidence to defend that in the future social web applications can contribute to the

collaboration. Furthermore, 30 percent of the employees partly agree and 17 percent agrees with the statement that they thought they could contribute to generate or adapt content of social web applications.

The last part of the research investigates the impact of social web applications on the business. When deploying social web applications a business case might be used in order to justify investments in social web applications. This study provides points of interest for such a business case and additionally some issues are explained, which are important when

deploying social web applications. These issues are based on literature and empirical findings.

Besides explaining issues regarding the deployment of social web applications, the

organisational consequences are described by explaining characteristics of an organisation in which social web applications could suit the best. The characteristics of such an organisation are the horizontal flow of information, the large flexibility and its organic structure. Social web applications probably suit best when they are incrementally implemented, hence incremental change is used.

For LogicaCMG this study can provide a good oversight of how social web applications can be used in an organisation. In 2008, LogicaCMG is planning to update the intranet from Sharepoint 2003 to Sharepoint 2007. With Sharepoint 2007, it is possible to deploy social web applications on the intranet. Because users already are using social web applications, the implementation of Sharepoint 2007 can provide more structure and this study can provide additional information on how to deploy and use social web applications.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 3

MANAGEMENT SUMMARY ... 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... 6

1 INTRODUCTION... 8

1.1 Organisation ... 8

1.1.1 LogicaCMG... 8

1.1.2 Working Tomorrow... 9

1.2 Motivation and Relevance... 9

1.3 Problem Statement ... 11

1.3.1 Objectives... 11

1.3.2 Research Question... 11

1.3.3 Research Sub Questions... 13

1.3.4 Scope and Limitations... 13

1.4 Research Approach ... 14

1.4.1 Conceptual Model... 14

1.4.2 Research Methods... 15

2 WEB APPLICATIONS... 18

2.1 Web Applications ... 18

2.1.1 Brief History of the Web... 18

2.1.2 Web 2.0 explained... 19

2.1.3 Relation Web 2.0 with New Web Applications and Techniques... 27

2.1.4 Buzzwords and Hypes... 31

2.2 Corporate Web Applications ... 33

2.2.1 Brief History of Web Applications in Corporate Environments... 33

2.2.2 Enterprise 2.0... 34

2.2.3 Management Support... 36

2.2.4 Social Web Applications... 40

2.2.5 Corporate Collaboration... 42

2.2.6 Contribution to Collaboration of Social Web Applications... 44

2.3 Conclusion... 51

3 SOCIAL WEB APPLICATIONS AT LOGICACMG... 54

3.1 Measurement Tool... 54

3.1.1 Theoretical Background... 54

3.1.2 Measuring Social Web Applications... 60

3.2 Social Web Applications at LogicaCMG... 63

3.2.1 Portfolio Social Web Applications... 63

3.2.2 Use of Social Web Applications... 64

3.2.3 Contribution of Social Web Applications... 67

3.2.3 Validity and Reliability... 71

3.3 Conclusion... 73

4 BUSINESS IMPACT... 75

4.1 Design Business Case for Social Web Applications ... 75

4.1.1 Theory of Business Cases... 76

4.1.2 Business Case Social Web Applications... 81

4.2 Deployment of Social Web Applications... 87

4.2.1 Theory of the Deployment of Social Web Applications... 87

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4.2 Organisational Consequences ... 91

4.2.1 Organisation Theory... 91

4.2.2 Consequences of Social Web Applications in an Organisation... 95

4.3 Guidelines for the Deployment of Social Web Applications at LogicaCMG... 97

4.3.1 Business Case... 97

4.3.2 Deployment... 99

4.3.3 Consequences... 102

4.4 Conclusion... 102

5 CONCLUSIONS ... 105

5.1 Main Conclusions... 105

5.1.1 Literature Study... 105

5.1.2 Empirical Study... 107

5.1.3 Business Implications... 108

5.1.4 Final Conclusion... 108

5.2 Recommendations ... 109

5.2.1 Future Research... 109

5.2.2 Recommendations for LogicaCMG... 110

5.3 Evaluation... 110

5.3.1 Research Limitations... 110

5.3.2 Reflection... 111

REFERENCES... 113

APPENDIX A ... 126

APPENDIX B ... 130

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1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter will explain in which organisation the research is done, why the subject of research is chosen and why this research is relevant. This chapter starts with describing the organisation where this thesis is written. When the organisation is described, the motivation and relevance will be explained. After explaining the motivation and relevance, the problem statement will be given. The composition of the problem statement is based on the theory of Cooper and Schindler (2003). In the problem statement the objectives, the research question, the research sub questions and the scope will be described.

1.1 Organisation

In this chapter, the organisation where the project is executed will be described. Firstly is explained how the organisation is organized and secondly the Working Tomorrow program will be further explained. Working Tomorrow is a program of LogicaCMG where students can graduate on an innovative project.

1.1.1 LogicaCMG

LogicaCMG is a major business in delivering IT services to its customers. Logica was founded in 1969 and started as a system integration business. In 2002 Logica (60%) merged with CMG (40%). Logica was traditionally a technology firm and CMG a consulting firm.

Both firms where founded in the United Kingdom. However, CMG always was bigger in the Netherlands and Logica in the United Kingdom. In 2006, Unilog and WM-data merged with LogicaCMG, expanding LogicaCMG’s activities to France and the Nordics. Nowadays LogicaCMG is a major player in the IT business with 40000 employees in 41 countries. The headquarters are based in Europe and LogicaCMG is listed on both the London Stock

Exchange and Euronext (Amsterdam) (LSE:LOG; Euronext:LOG) and traded on the Xternal List of the Nordic Exchange in Stockholm.

Mission statement of LogicaCMG is: “To help leading organisations worldwide achieve their business objectives through the innovative delivery of information technology and business process solutions”.

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1.1.2 Working Tomorrow

The research was done under the Working Tomorrow program. This program was started by LogicaCMG and employs students at different locations from different studies, to write their dissertation. All of the projects are innovative in the field of technology, concept or method.

The Working Tomorrow program has four main objectives:

- Give students a qualitative and learning traineeship

- Increase the reputation of LogicaCMG concerning innovation

- Use demos and prototypes in the negotiation trajectory of bigger projects - Recruit future employees

This project is placed in the division Energy, Utilities and Telecom (EUT). In this division, several specialism’s (Business Units or BU’s) are distinguished. In this situation, the student was employed within the testing competence. The following figure shows the organisational chart of LogicaCMG and Working Tomorrow.

Fig. 1.1: Organisational chart of LogicaCMG Nederland and Working Tomorrow

1.2 Motivation and Relevance

In the early years of business automation, enterprise applications were considered as an automated substitute for paper work that had to be done. These applications were running on client server networks and changed the work of all employees drastically. Throughout the years, the software was improved to meet more business needs. In the nineties, the web drastically changed the way in which organisations treated ICT. In the beginning, the web provided a rostrum for organisations to put their information online on a static website (Leiner et al, 2000). Soon after that, technology made it possible to make more dynamic websites that

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were connected with databases. These dynamic websites made it possible for organisations to sell their products online and improve interaction with their customers. Companies such as Dell (www.dell.com) and easyJet (www.easyjet.com) are good examples of companies who successfully used the web to perform business. Parallel with these developments the use of web applications, such as email, also made progress. Email for example made it possible for people who are connected to the internet to communicate with each other on a faster and more effective way and changed the way people communicate significantly. In the last two years, new web applications are gaining in popularity. These web applications are user content based and characterized by user participation, openness and network effects. These new web

applications became known as web 2.0. Popular web 2.0 applications are Wikipedia,

Youtube, Hyves and all kinds of blogs like blogs of famous politicians. Figure 1.2 depicts the history of internet and the web.

Fig. 1.2: From internet to enterprise 2.0 (web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com, June 2007)

Despite some people consider web 2.0 as a buzz-word with no meaning, fact remains that websites where users are in control of the content are gaining more popularity from a majority of the internet users (O’Reilly, 2006). Because web 2.0 applications are becoming more popular, the question arises how these new web applications can contribute to organisations.

The next paragraph will explain how this question forms the problem statement and research question.

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1.3 Problem Statement

In the problem statement the objectives of LogicaCMG, the RuG and my own objectives are explained. After describing the objectives, the research question is defined together with a short introduction to the subject. To give the research more structure, several research sub questions are defined. These research sub questions will be answered throughout the theses.

However, the research sub questions are not the only way for structuring this research. Other important factors are the scope and limitations of this research, which will be described after the description of the research sub questions.

1.3.1 Objectives

The main objective of this project is to accomplish a research that is both interesting to the practitioner, which is LogicaCMG and to the scientists in the field of Business&ICT.

LogicaCMG gave the opportunity to do this research in a practical environment, the Working Tomorrow program that is described in chapter 2.2.

The objectives for LogicaCMG’s Working Tomorrow program are:

- Give students a qualitative and learning traineeship

- Increase the reputation of LogicaCMG concerning innovation

- Use demos and prototypes in the negotiation trajectory of bigger projects - Recruit future employees

The objectives of the RuG are:

- Give students the opportunity to graduate in a practical environment on a scientific basis - Test the student‘s research capabilities

My objectives:

- Finish the MscBA Business&ICT program - Write a good thesis with an innovative subject - Expand knowledge and practical skills

1.3.2 Research Question

In this paragraph, the research question will be defined. In defining the research question, theory is used from the book Business Research Methods written by Cooper and Schindler (2003). This process starts with discovering the management dilemma that can be either a

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problem or an opportunity. Usually a problem is found through symptoms that occur in an organisation. However, in this case a new opportunity leads to the management dilemma. This opportunity is found trough a literature research, which began with reading about elaborating web applications. As stated in the previous paragraph the term “web 2.0” is an important issue in this research. In short, this term stands for the next phase of web applications that have user-generated content with rich interfaces. In his article O’Reilly (2006), who was the first to describe web 2.0, defines web 2.0 as: “Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects.”

(O’Reilly, 2006)

As with most elaborating information technologies, organisations are looking for methods to adopt these new technologies, this also counts for web 2.0. There are some articles

(McAfee, 2006; Tapscott, 2006; Gilroy and Ives, 2006) and an interview with Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2007) that explain why web 2.0 applications can be considered as a contribution to a company’s collaboration.

To be more specific, which is needed with such a subject, enterprise 2.0 web applications, in this research also referred to as social web applications, are blogs, wikis, RSS, personal web portals, online communities, tags, mashups, widgets and enterprise search. All these terms will be further explained in this research.

On this moment, some of the biggest software developers such as Microsoft and Oracle are offering products were web 2.0 could be integrated into a business environment. For example Microsoft’s Sharepoint and Oracle’s Webcenter give users the opportunity to blog and create wikis. The fact that these major firms are offering web 2.0 in corporate environments, proves that web 2.0 has to be taken seriously.

As described earlier, all new web 2.0 applications in a corporate environment can be

gathered under the enterprise 2.0 umbrella. It is clear that these new web applications can lead to certain opportunities within organisations. However, a direct contribution of these

applications to a company is not yet scientifically researched. Therefore, in this research the contribution of the enterprise 2.0 web applications will be addressed. Enterprise 2.0, or social web applications in a corporate environment, can be seen as an informal collaboration system over the business processes. Therefore, the contribution to the internal collaboration of an organisation will be researched. Besides the contribution to the collaboration, the

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organisational consequences of social web applications are also part of this research, because social web applications can thrive better in one organisation and less in another one.

The research question restates the dilemma in a question form. The management dilemma in this research is the opportunity of new enterprise 2.0 web applications for an organisation to collaborate in a more effective and emergent way. The term enterprise 2.0 is a term used for an entire organisation by McAfee (2006) and to prevent confusion, the term social web applications will be used. The choice for the term social web applications will be explained further this research. The organisation where this opportunity was researched is LogicaCMG.

Therefore, the research question is defined as:

“How can social web applications contribute to the collaboration at LogicaCMG, Business Unit Groningen and what are the organisational consequences?”

1.3.3 Research Sub Questions

After defining the research question, the research sub questions are formulated after another exploration. From a literature study, the following research questions are defined:

- What are the definitions of social web applications?

- How can these web applications contribute to the collaboration in an organisation?

- Which social web applications are currently used at LogicaCMG?

- Do these web applications currently contribute to the collaboration at LogicaCMG?

- Which social web applications could contribute to the collaboration at LogicaCMG in the future?

- How can these web applications be deployed in an organisation?

- What are the consequences of new social web applications for the organisation of LogicaCMG?

1.3.4 Scope and Limitations

Because the subject of this research is a term that can be considered as a buzzword, it is important to distinguish between what is important for this research and what not. The first research question therefore addresses clear definitions of social web applications. To answer this question it is very important to define which applications can be addressed as social web applications and how they can be put into a context.

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Another boundary is that the research will be done at LogicaCMG, however, it is not realistic that the whole organisation will be considered in the research. Therefore, a sample group was assembled within LogicaCMG Groningen. Here information will be gathered through a survey. Other scope requirements are drawn in the problem statement and in the research questions. In chapter 1.4.1, a conceptual model of this research is presented, where clear boundaries are drawn in an abstract way.

1.4 Research Approach

Now the problem statement is clear, the approach of this research can be explained. Before explaining the actual approach, the conceptual model is given which depicts the research and its boundaries in an abstract way. This conceptual model is directly derived from the main research question.

1.4.1 Conceptual Model

In a conceptual model the subjects and the relations between them, are presented in an abstract way to show the content and scope of the research. The conceptual model for this research is showed in figure 1.3. In this conceptual model, the independent (IV) and dependent (DV) variables and their relationships are shown.

Contribute To

Social Web Applications (IV) Collaboration (DV)

Consequences

At

LogicaCMG, Groningen (DV)

Figure 1.3: Conceptual Model: Corporate Collaboration through Social Web Applications

The main objectives of this research are to examine if enterprise 2.0 web applications can contribute to the collaboration at LogicaCMG and translate the theory into a practical

application. The relation between LogicaCMG and social web applications will be researched, after that in more detail the contribution of social web applications for the collaboration at

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LogicaCMG will be investigated. The variables in this case are the social web applications, collaboration and LogicaCMG. Variables in a conceptual model can be defined as

independent, dependent and moderating variables. The independent variable (IV) is the variable that influences and the dependent variable (DV) is the one that is influenced. The moderating variable (MV) is a second independent variable and haves a significant effect on the relation between the independent variable and the dependent variable. In the conceptual model the independent variable are the social web applications and the dependent variables the collaboration and LogicaCMG. All these variables can be traced back to the original problem statement: “How can social web applications (IV) contribute to the collaboration (DV) at LogicaCMG Business Unit Groningen (DV) and what are the organisational consequences?”

1.4.2 Research Methods

In this paragraph, the research method for every research sub question will be explained.

The first three research questions will be answered through a literature study. In this study, the current literature about web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, social web applications and collaboration in an organisation will be examined, as well as literature about web applications in general, other new web applications and techniques and the collaboration inside an organisation. Due to the novelty of social web applications, different kinds of formal and informal sources will be used as input for this literature study. These sources are scientific journals like MIT Sloan Management Review, web sites of research organisations like NewParadigm, publishing organisations like O'Reilly Media, popular ICT magazines and blogs of people who are interested in the subject, like the blogs of professor McAfee and Davenport from the Harvard Business School.

In the literature study, also the contribution of social web applications to the

communication, intranet and knowledge sharing will be examined. When the contribution of social web applications for an organisation is defined, an empirical case study at LogicaCMG will be designed. In this study, the contribution of social web applications for the contribution at LogicaCMG will be investigated. This will be done by examining the current intranet and by surveying employees at LogicaCMG. These employees will be selected through a

sampling technique, which will be explained in chapter three. Furthermore, the business impact will be explained by researching the deployment of social web applications and by describing the organisational consequences.

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Below, the research methods are described for every research sub question:

What are the definitions of social web applications?

This question will be answered through a literature study. For this study, formal resources like scientific journals and less formal resources like popular ICT magazines and blogs will be used. An important issue is to make the definitions as concrete as possible, because a term which is too abstract can lead to vagueness in this research. Besides definitions, also the context of social web applications will be explained through this study.

How can these web applications contribute to the collaboration in an organisation?

With researching the literature, the contribution of web applications to an organisation in general will be researched. Then the contribution of specific web applications like, for example, blogs will be researched. With researching collaboration, also knowledge sharing will be taken into account, because sharing knowledge can be seen as an act of working jointly, hence collaboration.

Which social web applications are currently used at LogicaCMG?

To answer this question an empirical study approach will be used. This empirical study will be based on literature and on knowledge and experiences of colleagues. In addition, a tool will be developed to measure the contribution of social web applications. With this tool, the current contribution can be measured and future contribution can be predicted. This means that the current situation can be compared with the excepted situation, for example, one year later.

Do these web applications currently contribute to the collaboration at LogicaCMG?

This question will also be answered with an empirical study at LogicaCMG that consists of data collecting techniques like surveying and desk research. The collected data will be

analyzed so conclusions can be drawn.

In the previous question, social web applications at LogicaCMG’s intranet are determined.

When these web applications are determined, this observation can be considered as a fact.

From this fact, a hypothesis of how these web applications contribute will be inferred and from this hypothesis, new facts will be deduced. These facts will, as explained above, going to be found through proven data collecting techniques. The main data collecting technique in

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this research will be surveying. As is described in Cooper and Schindler (2003) the data will be processed with statistical methods. For testing the hypothesis, a null hypothesis (H0) is defined. In a null hypothesis, it is assumed that there is no relation between the variables. The null hypothesis in this research will be: “Social web applications do not contribute to the collaboration at LogicaCMG”. The alternative hypothesis (HA) is the opposite of the null hypothesis, so logically this result in: “Social web applications are a contribution to the collaboration at LogicaCMG”. With a statistical test, the null hypothesis can be rejected or not.

Which social web applications could contribute to the collaboration at LogicaCMG in the future?

Here the answers in the previous questions will function as the basis to come up with social web applications, which in combination with current web applications, could improve the collaboration at LogicaCMG. Finding an answer to this question means that social web applications for LogicaCMG have to be defined and the contribution of these applications to the collaboration has to be researched. The null hypothesis for this question will be: “Social web applications cannot contribute to the collaboration in the future”. The alternative

hypothesis will be: “Social web applications can contribute to the collaboration in the future”.

With statistical methods, these hypotheses will be tested.

How can these web applications be deployed in an organisation?

With this research question it will be investigated how social web applications can be used in a business case. This will be done by using a business case template that is generally used by LogicaCMG. Beside the business case, also suggestions will be made on how to deploy social web applications. These suggestions will be based on literature and the empirical findings from the previous research questions.

What are the consequences of social web applications for the organisation of LogicaCMG?

Based on literature study and the empirical study, consequences of the deployment of social web applications will be defined for an entire organisation and for LogicaCMG. Subjects of research are organisational characteristics and organisational change.

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2 WEB APPLICATIONS

This chapter will answer the research sub questions: “What are the definitions of social web applications?” and “How can these web applications contribute to the collaboration in an organisation?”. First web applications in general are addressed, second web applications in a corporate environment will be examined and third social web applications will be explained.

2.1 Web Applications

Web applications are applications that run in a web browser on the web or intranet, instead of being installed on a desktop. In the next paragraphs, a brief history of the web will be given and from that history of the web, the term web 2.0 and its relation with other web applications and techniques will be further explained. Because the term web 2.0 can be considered as a hype there will also be an explanation of hypes and buzzwords.

2.1.1 Brief History of the Web

In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal because a tool was needed at CERN (Conseil Européenne pour la Recherche Nucleaire) to enhance the collaboration between physicists and other researchers at CERN. One year later Bernes-Lee and Cailliau refined the proposal and three new technologies were described. This proposal is considered as the basis for the World Wide Web as we are using it today and the three new technologies Bernes-Lee introduced were HTML (HyperText Markup Language), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and a web browser (Berners-Lee, 1989). Another important part of the proposal was that the client’s user interface is consistent across all types of computer platforms. Therefore all HTML coded documents had to be stored on a server. This file server was called the web server and in 1993, there were already over 500 known web servers throughout the world

(http://public.web.cern.ch, July 10, 2007). In 1994, the web really made progress and the amount of users reached a number over ten million. The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C), known for introducing HTML standards, was founded in 1995 and the web grew in popularity. One important note that has to be made is the difference between the internet and the World Wide Web. The internet is commonly known as the technique that makes the World Wide Web possible, such as the introduction of TCP/IP in 1983. Therefore, the World

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With the introduction of HTML, it was possible to develop web sites with static

information. These static websites are stored on web servers in the same way, as the user will see them. This means no direct change is possible in the website, neither in content nor in layout, by the user. Soon after that, dynamic websites were introduced to show information in a dynamic way. With these dynamic websites, interaction is established between the website and the user. The user, for example, can enter information on the website, this information will be processed in a database and the website can show information out of the database.

These new technologies created new ways to do business (Huizingh, 2002). In the late nineties the internet and the e-business was hyped and some predicted a new economy.

However, these new opportunities did not lead to a new economy (Porter, 2001) as some predicted, instead it leaded to the burst of the internet bubble in 2000 (Ofek, 2003). Despite this burst of the internet bubble, web applications were embedded in companies’ ways of doing business and nowadays almost every company has a web site. Porter (2001) described a website as a powerful set of tools that can be used in almost every industry and with almost every strategy. Some companies, which relied on doing business via the web, survived the burst of the internet bubble and showed that the web was not entirely crashed (O’Reilly, 2005) and nowadays forty to seventy percent of people in western countries are connected to the internet (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) and are using the web. In the last years, new dynamic websites, which are highly user content driven are becoming more used every day. In the next paragraph, these new web applications are going to be described in more detail.

2.1.2 Web 2.0 explained

In 2005, a new buzzword was introduced by O’Reilly, which enclosures new web applications were users could enter, edit, and/or delete the content. These new web applications became known as web 2.0. The definition of web 2.0 as defined by O’Reilly (2005) is: “Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet on a more mature, distinctive medium

characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects.” So web 2.0 refers to the next phase of the web were the input of the user is at the centre. Another important

characteristic is the informal way of information and knowledge sharing between the users.

Applications and techniques that can be considered as web 2.0 are:

- Blogs

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- Mashups

- Online Communities - Personalized Web Portals - RSS

- Tagging - Widgets - Wikis

Blogs or web logs are websites where entries are shown in a chronicle way. These entries can be news, certain opinions or just random subjects. Most blogs are made by individuals, however, there are also group blogs that are connected to online communities (Godwin-Jones, 2003). Visitors of a blog usually can leave a comment on an entry and this interaction can lead to discussions about the subject of an entry. There are people who argue that the first blog was the first website of Bernes-Lee in 1991, however, the first blog in its current layout was introduced in 1996 and the word “blog” was introduced in 1997 by Jom Barger (Herring et al, 2004). Blogs became popular and mainstream around 1999 when Blogger

(www.blogger.com) was introduced and made freely available to the public (Drezner and Farrell, 2004).

One advantage of blogs is that almost everyone with a little computer experience can make a blog. No particular HTML knowledge is needed for creating a blog. For example,

www.blogger.com and www.blogline.com gives users, after creating an account, the possibility to create their own blog with several templates.

The blogging community often is recalled as the “blogosphere” (Williams and Jacobs, 2004). In an article of Herring et al (2004), a model is introduced, developed by

Krishnamurthy, which proposed a classification of blogs, as presented in figure 2.1. This model is based on the content of a blog and can be used for identifying a type of blog.

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Figure 2.1: Types of Blogs (Herring et al, 2004)

From figure 2.1, it can be derived that blogs can exist for different reasons and can be made by individuals or by communities.

Mashups are web applications that combine content from different third-party sources.

These sources can be for example other websites, web feeds or web services (Jackson and Wang, 2007). The word mashup is derived from the hip-hop scene where it means mixing two or more songs together to form a new song, hence a mashup (O’Brien, 2006).

A good example, which is used often today, is Google maps (maps.google.com) where third parties can add content. For example, a real estate agent can put the locations of the houses that are for sale on a map so people who are interested in buying a new house can see the location of that house on a map, as is shown in figure 2.2.

Personal

Topical

Individual Community

Quadrant I Online Diaries

Quadrant II Support Group

Quadrant III Enhanced Column, e.g.

Andrewsullivan.com

Quadrant IV Collaborative Content Creation, e.g. Metafilter

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Figure 2.2: A mashup for a real estate (www.funda.nl, November 2007)

Currently mash up programs are not something for the low technical user. However, research is being done for a framework that will make it easier to create a mashup (Tuchinda et al, 2007). Currently Intel in cooperation with Yahoo is busy with developing MashMaker, which should make it easier for end users to create a mashup (Ennals and Garofalakis, 2007).

Often mashups are brought into relation with widgets. The relation between mashups and the term widget will be explained in the subsection “widgets”.

Online communities or virtual communities are groups of people with social interactions, social ties with an own webspace that communicate with each other via the internet and because of the complexity it can be seen as socio-technical systems (Moor de and Weigand, 2005). The term virtual suggests that these communities are not physical, however, they have a real existence and do have significant consequences on how the users act (Kozinets, 2002).

Nowadays, online communities have become an accepted part of internet users, however, a problem for providers is the participation of users. Some members do not feel the need to participate, these members are known as “lurkers”. Other members do contribute a lot and

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these members are known as “elders” (Bishop, 2007). Reasons for members to participate in online communities or not, are the goals, values and beliefs of these members. In his article, Bishop (2007) argues that there are two main solutions for providers of online communities that can lead to more participation of its members. The use of persuasive text can be used in order to challenge the members’ belief in information.

Of course, a lot can be said about online communities, especially because they are complex socio-technical systems. However, the scope of this thesis limits further research about these online communities.

Personalized web portals are websites with personalized content that gives users access to other web pages. These new portals will be designed in such a way that users can add their favourite news sites, blogs and so on. One problem of the World Wide Web is the

information overload (Edmunds and Morris, 2000). To solve this problem personalized web portals can be used and in their article Kowalkiewicz et al (2006) name these portals as MyPortal. In MyPortal users can add content on their own portal from different websites in an easy to use way. One specific characteristic of MyPortal is the robustness. Robustness in this case means the immunity of the document structure and the ability of extracting content from different queries. A nice example is Microsoft Live where users can create their own portal on the web. On live.com, users can add widgets to their start page, so it is possible that they for example can check their mail, calendar, news and weather forecasts on one page. On this page a web search engine is integrated, so from this portal users can search and access the most used web pages.

Web Feeds, the most common web feed used for publishing frequently updated content on websites like blogs and news-sites is RSS. The most common explanation of the initials RSS is Really Simple Syndication. However, there are three different explanations of these initials, each standing for a different version of RSS. These versions and explanations are:

- RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90, RDF Site Summary - RSS 0.91, Rich Site Summary

- RSS 2.0, Really Simple Syndication

The first explanation of RSS is RDF Site Summary. RDF stands for Resource Description Framework and is designed as a web service for the semantic web (Bernes-Lee et al, 2001) by

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Netscape. The semantic web is an intelligent web that lets computers interact with each other, further explanation of the web will be given in chapter 2.1.3 in the last subsection.

The second explanation is the Rich Site Summary. This version was introduced by

Userland and the intension was to overrule version 0.90, also RDF was no longer used in the name Rich Site Summary.

The third and most common version is RSS 2.0, Really Simple Syndication. This version was introduced by Userland as an answer on Netscape’s RSS 1.0. This last version is now commonly used by news sites, blogs and so on.

For gathering the RSS feeds, RSS aggregators are needed. Users can subscribe to a website usually by clicking on the RSS icon. When clicked on the icon, the link of the website will be entered into the aggregator. The aggregator then checks for updates of the site, so the user will always be up to date. The content of RSS feeds is known as metadata and metadata means information about information. An RSS feed of for example a news item exists out of the title and a short summary of that news item. Because RSS is the most common and known web feed, this research addresses web feeds as RSS in the rest of this document.

Tagging is a way to give keywords to pieces of information. This information can for example be a new blog entry, article or text document (Brooks and Montanez, 2006). The difference between the old way of key wording is that users now can add keywords to the information, instead of the authors who own the information. When more users tag the same information with the same keyword, the information will gain in popularity and will be easier to find in a search engine. There are two major reasons why tagging matters. The first reason is that it helps forming social groups around semantics and the second reason is that it creates a democratic way of ordering information (Weinberger, 2005).

Tagging can create so called “folksonomies” (Weinberger, 2005). A folksonomy is a term defined by Thomas Vander Wal and is a composition of the words “folk” and “taxonomy”

(Sturtz, 2004). Characteristics of folksonomies are their bottom-up construction, simple hierarchical structure and the creation and use in a social context.

Good examples where tags are successfully used are Flickr.com and del.icio.us. On www.flickr.com users can add and share photo’s and add tags to them, the most popular tags are shown in a list so popular photo’s become easier to find. On del.icio.us users can save URL’s on their personal page and tag these URL’s, so popular URL’s are shown when a user searches for a specific subject. When for example the search query “Groningen” is entered the

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homepage of the University of Groningen is shown as the fourth hit because there are 16 people who have added the tag “Groningen” to the URL www.rug.nl, as can be seen in figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3: Tags on del.icio.us (del.icio.us, November 2007)

Widget or gadgets, in the context of web 2.0, are small web applications for displaying and updating data on the client side. These widgets can be downloaded and installed on the

client’s computer or webpage. Examples of widgets are clocks, weather forecasts,

newsreaders and stock currencies. They can be put on web pages and can be installed on a client’s desktop (Caceres, 2007). Widgets installed on desktops are usually referred to as widget engines. When several different widgets are shown on one web page, it is called a mashup. Techniques that are being used for widgets are HTML, CSS, XML JavaScript and VBScript. In the last years, these widgets are gaining in popularity. In an article in

Newsweek, 2007 is called the year of the widgets. New Operating Systems (OS) of Apple and Windows already are equipped with widgets. By Microsoft, these widgets are referred to as gadgets (http://microsoftgadgets.com, July, 2007) and Apple calls them Dashboards

(http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/dashboard, July, 2007). Other well-known vendors

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who have introduced widgets are Yahoo with Yahoo! Widgets (http://widgets.yahoo.com/, July, 2007) and Google with Google Desktop (http://desktop.google.com/, July, 2007).

Wiki The word wiki comes from Hawaii and means quick. The term was first introduced by Ward Cunningham in 1995 and represents the easy learning of use (Tazzoli et al, 2004).

Wikis are communally written web pages and the best-known example of a Wiki is

Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia where every person who enters the site can add, delete or read the content (http://www.wikipedia.org, July, 2007). Characteristics of Wikis (Andersen, 2005) are:

- Simple design in HTML

- Simple rules for linking between pages - Old versions of all entries have to be saved

- History savings of all who have edited or deleted a page - Anyone should edit everything

- Direction of style and content is set by the readers

A wiki can be protected by a password to avoid spammers or to protect its content

(Plowman, 2007). Because the content of a wiki can be changed by everyone, there is a risk that someone’s entry will be deleted or ruined. However, empirical studies have showed that this is not the case with wikis, because of the “SoftSecurity” (Lamb, 2004). SoftSecurity is an ethic, which means that the community of wiki users keeps an eye on all entries. Because everyone can edit everything users are not attempted to write false entries. A person is not going to spend time with writing an entry with falsehoods when he or she knows that the chances are high that it will be deleted or changed. This is also the reason that Wikipedia is a relatively save source for finding information.

As can be derived from the text above, web 2.0 is a container term for all new kinds of web applications were the users are in control of the content, also referred to as social software, which will be explained later in this chapter. Because it is a container term, it is quite

impossible to address all techniques and applications considered as web 2.0. However, for this research the most relevant and useful applications and techniques that can contribute to an organisation’s collaboration will be addressed. Although the word web 2.0, and all words with 2.0 added, is hyped and maybe misused for marketing purposes, it still remains a fact that web applications, which are user content based, are growing in popularity, see for example

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the popularity of websites like Youtube (www.youtube.com), Flickr (www.flickr.com) and social networking sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com) and Hyves (www.hyves.nl).

There are scientists who lack the word web 2.0. For example, Bernes-Lee states in an interview with IBM that web 2.0 is just a meaningless word (www.ibm.com, July, 2007).

However, in a newer article he uses the word “social software” (Bernes-Lee et al, 2006) to depict the same applications that are considered in web 2.0. My own opinion is that in the end it does not really matter which word is used, as long as everyone knows where you are talking about and what is being mended with it. In chapter 2.1.4, more will be explained about hypes and buzzwords. The word web 2.0 is a useful word to depict the new web applications (Miller, 2005) and that is why in this research the term web 2.0 is used. However, one important note has to be made. The web 2.0 is not about introducing a new technology, instead it is about a new and innovative way of using existing technologies like HTML, Javascript and XML for a more collaborative usage of the web.

In the concept of web 2.0, the web can be seen as a platform (O’Reilly, 2005). The new web platform partly replaces the old desktop as a platform. Of course, the web never will entirely replace the desktop as a platform, however, the usage of new web applications is still increasing. For example, Wikipedia already has over two million articles in more than forty different languages.

Summarized characteristics of web 2.0 are:

- Users in control of the information - User friendly and enriched user interface - The web as a platform

In the next paragraph, other new and upcoming web applications will be discussed. In chapter 2.1.4 hypes and buzzwords in general will be further explained, so there will be a better judgment whether web 2.0 is something sustainable or just a temporarily hype.

2.1.3 Relation Web 2.0 with New Web Applications and Techniques

Because web 2.0 is a very broad term that needs to be put into a context, this paragraph is going to discuss the relation between web 2.0 and other new web applications and techniques.

Below, a short summary of the new applications and techniques that are going to be discussed, are given:

- RIA (Rich Internet Application)

- AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)

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- SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) - SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) - REST (Representational State Transfer) - Semantic Web

RIA stands for Rich Internet Applications and are web applications that have the same characteristics as desktop applications (Mullet, 2003). At traditional web applications, the processing is done on a web server while with RIA the processing is executed on the client’s computer. The term is introduced by Macromedia in 2002 and these new web applications would lead to a better quality of complete customer experience.

Often the web development technique AJAX, which initials stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is brought into relation with web 2.0 and AJAX can be described as a subset of RIA. However, the difference between other applications that can be considered as RIA and AJAX is that AJAX uses Javascript to render the interface and other applications use techniques like Flash or Java applets. The advantage of AJAX is that users do not have to install plug-ins to enter the website. This means that AJAX applications can be run in every browser and on every computer with a browser. Figure 2.4 depicts a decision tree for using a traditional HTML interface or RIA.

Figure 2.4: Decision Tree (source: http://www.javalobby.org/articles/ajax-ria-overview/)

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The major advantage of RIA and AJAX is the increase of speed, which means the reduction of wait time between client and server. With this increase of speed new and more advanced web applications are possible. A good example of a web application that is using AJAX is Google maps. When a user zooms in on the map and scrolls around, the webpage does not have to be refreshed and everything happens almost instantly.

SOA stands for Service Oriented Architecture and can be considered as an architecture model rather than an application or a technique. This architecture is a paradigm where the components are services that can be consumed by clients over the network (Brown et al, 2002). This means that different services are brought together independent of their source into one service. The different services are brought together in relation with business processes.

Traditional software applications are split up in different components or services and are brought together in one service that can be implemented into a business process

(www.w3c.org; Zimmerman et al, 2005; Wang, 2005). A SOA is build up out of four layers.

The first layer is Business Process Management (BPM), the second Business Services, the third the business applications and the fourth the technologies behind the applications. A common used technique for SOA is the web service Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), the next subsection will give a brief explanation of SOAP.

SOAP is a protocol based on simple XML and remote procedure calls (RPC) used for the exchange of information between different applications over HTTP or HTTPS

(www.w3schools.org, July 2007). It is developed by Microsoft in cooperation with IBM, Lotus and Userland (Curbera, 2002) and the w3c provided the standard xml structure. This web service often is opposed against REST, which will be explained in the next paragraph.

The main difference between SOAP and REST is that SOAP is a protocol and REST is an architecture. Besides, REST is relatively easy to use compared to SOAP (Muehlen et al, 2004).

REST is developed as an abstract model of the web by Fielding and Taylor (2002).

Fielding is one of the authors of the HTTP specification introduced in the nineties (Berners- Lee et al, 1996; Fielding et al, 1997) and his articles were the foundation of the development of the REST architecture. Representational State Transfer is a way of how the World Wide Web should work. REST is a network architecture that outlines how resources should be used and addressed. In a REST, a representation of the resource is returned from a client

application. The state of the application then is changed through the representation, so the application changes or transfers into a state with each resource representation. Resource

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representations can be XML, HTML, JPEG and so on. The state of the resource

representation can be changed through a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). An URI is a string of characters that identifies a source and especially is used for the World Wide Web.

Therefore URI’s have to be build up in a logical way instead of a physical way. For doing so, nouns should be used instead of verbs. So for example do not use the URL (an URL is a subset of an URI): http://computerparts.com/parts/GetPart.id:345, instead use

http://computerparts.com/parts/ 345.

The Semantic Web is originally introduced by Bernes-Lee (2001) and is an extension of the current web. Current web, and web 2.0, applications are designed to be read by humans.

Therefore, computers are not able to “read” the content web applications. In his article, Bernes-Lee (2001) states that within the semantic web, computers should be able to analyze the data of web pages and other computers. When computers are able to read the content of web pages, searching and sharing information will improve, because a computer is then able to combine specific information. For the communication between computers web services, agents and user constraints will be used (Hendler, 2001; McIlraith, 2001). A software agent is software that acts for a user or a program. Software agents have the authority to decide when and if an action is needed. The difference between software agents and other programs are the agents’ autonomy (Franklin and Graesser, 1996). Software agents play ta most important role on the semantic web.

The two most important technologies on the semantic web are XML and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) (Bernes-Lee, 2001). The current web is built up in such a way that there is no or very few metadata available. Metadata is information about information.

Because there is very little metadata, it is difficult for software agents to find certain information. RDF makes it possible to describe and interchange metadata (www.w3c.org;

www.xml.com, July, 2007). In chapter 2.1.2, the different kinds of RSS were explained. One version of RSS, RSS 1.0, is mainly based on RDF, however, because RSS 2.0 is less complex and easier in use, RSS 2.0 is now used as the standard RSS version.

Additionally, the Web Ontology Language (OWL) is developed in order to create ontology for the semantic web. The reason for its design was to represent information about categories of objects and how these objects are related (Horrocks, 2003). The OWL is a vocabulary extension of RDF and XML is the basic technology behind it (www.w3.org, July, 2007).

It can be argued that web 2.0 and the semantic web are two different developments of the web that compete with each other, however, there are also advocates that claim that these two

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developments are complementary (Ankolekar et al, 2007). The web 2.0 focus is on community and interactivity, while the semantic web focuses on a rich infrastructure for exchanging information across application boundaries. Both developments, of course, have their own assumptions, cultures and focal points. However, they can complement each other and they need elements of each other (Ankolekar et al, 2007). This means that the semantic web should use more user content web applications and the web 2.0 should use more elements of the semantic web such as RDF. For example, the search for reviews about a certain car can improve when bloggers who write their review about a car use RDF, so this blog has a RDF label that makes it easier to find for other computers. This combination of web 2.0 and the semantic web is sometimes called web 3.0. However, there is not even a clear definition of web 2.0 so the term web 3.0 is even more debatable and will not be further used in this thesis.

2.1.4 Buzzwords and Hypes

Since the introduction of web 2.0, this term is hyped and a clear definition on which everyone agrees still is not available (Best, 2006; Miller, 2005). However, as stated before in this thesis the most common definition of web 2.0 is written by O’Reilly who was the first who came up with this term.

For determining the maturity of an emerging technology, Gartner has developed a hype cycle (http://www.gartner.com, July, 2007) in 1995. In this hype cycle a technology can go through five different phases. Figure 2.5 shows the hype cycle of 2006 as determined by Gartner.

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Figure 2.5: Hype Cycle (http://resources.emartin.net/blog/pic/ET-Cycle-2006.jpg)

The first phase is the technology trigger. Here a breakthrough, product launch or other event creates great press interest.

The second phase is the peak of inflated expectations. In this phase, the publicity creates over enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations.

In the third phase technologies enters the trough of disillusionment. The press usually abandons the technology and the technology fails to meet the high expectations.

The fourth phase is the slope of enlightenment. Here the press have stopped writing about the technology, however, some businesses experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of these technologies.

In the fifth and last phase, the technology reaches the plateau of productivity. In this final phase of the hype cycle, the benefits of a technology are accepted. The technology becomes stable and the height of the plateau is determined on whether a technology is accepted widely or by a small niche market (www.gartner.com).

As can be derived from figure 2.5, web 2.0 was in 2006 on top of the hype and it will take approximately two years before it gets mainstream and accepted. A technology that is part of this research are wikis and this technology was in 2006 in the phase of disillusionment. Other

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technologies that are addressed in this research were in 2006 in the first phase or in the second phase. Unfortunately, the hype cycle for emerging technologies 2007 is not yet public

available, however, a table of content is available on Gartner researches (www.gartner.com).

Interesting to see in this table, is that enterprise social software and mashups are currently on the peak of the hype cycle; enterprise social software is another word for enterprise 2.0 applications.

Terms like web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 can be considered as a buzzword. A buzzword is a hollow term introduced for marketing reasons. However, buzzwords also can have a positive effect because it draws the attention on something new. Some buzzwords die a slow death and some are sustainable. For example Business Process Reengineering and Knowledge

Management were considered as just buzzwords and nowadays these terms are commonly used (Spiegler, 2000).

To conclude it can be argued that the applications considered in this research all can be found in Gartner’s hype cycle. Currently the enterprise 2.0 applications or social web

applications are around the peak of the hype. This research will go beyond the hype and will develop an instrument to measure the use of these applications.

2.2 Corporate Web Applications

In the previous paragraph web applications for all internet users were explained, in this paragraph web applications in corporate environments will be discussed.

2.2.1 Brief History of Web Applications in Corporate Environments

Corporate web applications can be addressed as a corporate information system that uses World Wide Web technology to provide access to corporate information for internal and external users (Artz, 1996). Internal use of web applications means, accessing internal

corporate information and can be referred to as intranet web applications. The intranet gained serious attention in 1995 and 1996 by companies and in 1997 the first researches were done on the social and organisational consequences of intranets (Scheepers, 1997). Throughout the years, intranets became a serious tool for companies and applications like email, static web pages, document flow management and database operations, improved communication and information exchange between employees (Lamb and Davidson, 2005).

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2.2.2 Enterprise 2.0

Now there is a good picture of what web 2.0 exactly is and how it is related to other new web applications and techniques. In the previous paragraph, web applications in corporate environments were briefly explained. In this paragraph and in the next paragraphs it will be explained how web 2.0 applications can be implemented into a corporate environment. In an article in spring 2006 professor McAfee from the Harvard Business School wrote about implementing web 2.0 into an enterprise and came up with the term enterprise 2.0 (McAfee, 2006). In this article, McAfee (2006) argues that current knowledge management and other tools like email and intranets are insufficient for knowledge workers. He bases his argument on articles of scientists who have researched knowledge management and case studies.

Because the old ways were insufficient, new platforms arose and are still arising, which are focusing on practices and outputs of knowledge workers rather than capturing knowledge itself. These new platforms for generating, sharing and refining information are known as web 2.0. For implementing these platforms in a business, the term enterprise 2.0 can be used.

Enterprise 2.0, which are social web applications in a corporate environment, are divided into six different components and the acronym used for these components is SLATES, which stands for Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions and Signals.

Search

It is obvious that for any information system counts that the information should be findable.

That is why the first component of SLATES is Search. Information searching on a company’s intranet is part of research almost immediately after the intranets showed up in companies (Stenmark, 1999). In the last few years, new enterprise search engines are developed for a more effective search within a company (http://office.microsoft.com;

http://www.google.com/enterprise/).

Links

Linking pages is one of the biggest successes behind the search engine Google and behind the World Wide Web as a whole. However, on intranets links between content are not as present as on the internet, which results in less effective search engines (Mukherjee and Mao, 2004). Therefore, for a more effective enterprise search, more links are necessary. However, it is quite impossible to redesign the complete intranet and in some cases data cannot be linked

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at all, for example with email messages. That is why tagging and adding other metadata to information can contribute to enterprise search.

Authoring

Technologies such as blogs and wikis make it possible for everyone in a company to author. Content on blogs is cumulative, entries and comments accumulate over time and content on wikis is iterative, because people can add, update and delete content (McAfee, 2006).

Tags

Tags are words that can be attached to certain content such as an URL, image or movie, and can lead to folksonomies as is explained in chapter 2.1.2. When employees for example save these tags, they can track which sites they have visited and other employees can see which sites are commonly visited, so patterns will emerge. Also tagging will make it easier for enterprise search because now users can add keywords to content. When more employees tag certain content, this content will be easier to find as.

Extension

Extensions in this context are applications with an algorithm that can suggest other content.

If you like this then you probably will also like that. One good and well-known example is Amazon.com, which shows on the bottom of the page other books, when searched for a particular book.

Signals

When a web page is frequently updated, it can be helpful for users to receive a signal when a page is updated. A good technique that can be used for sending signals to users is RSS, which is also explained in chapter 2.1.2.

Two important characteristics of social web applications are that they are emergent and not technical. Not technical means that all users with at least some internet experience can easily understand how it works. Therefore, these applications have to have an easy learning curve.

In addition, the content of these applications have to be as bottom-up as possible. This emergent character does not have to mean that social web applications cannot work together

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with other applications that are implemented in a more structured way. Data for example can be exported from a database and shown with xml on a web page that also shows the latest entries in a blog. Such a web page, which combines content from different sources, is called a mashup as explained earlier in this thesis and the data can be shown in widgets.

2.2.3 Management Support

Some management support still is needed when deploying social web applications in an organisation. Although social web applications should be emergent and bottom-up, employees still need some encouragement to use the new applications, so therefore management and project sponsors are needed. In a survey, analysts, consultants and social computer adopters were interviewed about web 2.0 in enterprises (Tebbutt, 2006). In this survey, a pattern of reasons why executives are rejecting social web applications was found. In the next subsections, these reasons will be briefly explained.

Losing control

The first reason why some managers do not support the use of social web applications in their organisation is losing control. This reason is the number one concern of all executives.

There are companies that are a little nervous about giving employees a voice. The social web applications could subvert the hierarchy and management could be afraid that employees discover things that were previously hidden from them. These concerns were also present in the early days of telephones, email and computer networks. Difference between these techniques and social web applications is that the old systems were one to one

communications and could be easily controlled. Social web applications make it possible to share information throughout the organisation and this could lead to leakage of information outside the company. Because everyone can use techniques like blogging and wikis, the content is more difficult to control. However, because a characteristic of social web

applications is that everyone can use it, a company should not want to control the information, instead it has to trust on the social control of employees. The trust in her employees will be discussed as the next reason.

Never trust an employee

There are companies who find it difficult to trust their employees to behave and not leaking

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