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The Web is in a perpetual state of evolution in this present Information Age. Each day introduces an innovation that promises to help in creating scalable business with the least possible investment. Web 2.0, which has transformed the Internet from a read-only medium into a read-write medium, is one of the most prominent examples of such innovation. Web 2.0 harnesses the power of the masses and builds upon collaboration and online interaction.
  
Some social networking sites, which heralded the idea of online interaction and, in turn, revolutionized Web 2.0 are Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Orkut, and Bebo. Though very competitive, the social networking arena is seeing a proliferation of such sites, a fact that portends hectic activity in the coming years. Initially, social networking sites were used only informally. However, the situation has undergone considerable transformation and it is now increasingly being noticed that in order to ensure higher productivity, employers do not restrict employees from accessing social networking sites. In fact, certain public relations firms like Brands2Life have received the idea of social networking in a very positive manner. They are using platforms such as social networking sites, blogs, and podcasts for the purpose of recruitment.
  
Moreover, many large organizations are now encouraging the practice of corporate blogging. They are using corporate blogs as a means to increase their influence and, consequently, sales volumes. With the help of their blogs, firms manage to communicate with almost everyone they wish to, starting from employees and consumers to shareholders and the media, in the process keeping a track of target audiences' views and opinions. The biggest recognition to corporate blogging was perhaps the formation of the Blog Council in 2007 by large organizations such as Nokia, Motorola, Cisco, and Dell, among others.
  
Leading software vendors such as Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP are also embracing the concept of Web 2.0 to better reach out to customers. Microsoft's Office SharePoint Server 2007 promotes the idea of Web 2.0 by providing a platform for collaboration and working in teams through people-driven processes. SharePoint 2007 has templates for blogs and wikis, a social networking capability, and RSS. Oracle, on its part, has also been contributing to the Web 2.0 momentum. It recently announced that it is developing a number of new applications that will feature a Web 2.0 application and integrate with consumer networks such as LinkedIn through Google's OpenSocial application programming interface (API).
  
Going forward, analysts maintain that investments in Web 2.0 will continue to increase over the coming years due to the limitless opportunities it provides to businesses and consumers by means of sharing information. Therefore, the Web 2.0 market will also witness a proliferation of companies. These companies will have to keep abreast with the latest technologies in order to make their presence felt in this highly competitive market, where innovations take place on a regular basis.
  
However, the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools has led to some concerns. A serious problem that goes hand-in-hand with social networking is the possibility of leakage of highly important information. For example, on April 13, 2008, The Jerusalem Post published a report, "Classified IDF information open to the world on Facebook," in which it reported the leakage of highly sensitive Israeli military information via Facebook. Security concerns are also looming large over Web 2.0. Enterprises are wary of incorporating Web 2.0 applications in their business models because of the growing incidents of security breaches on such platforms.
  
We are of the opinion that the Web 2.0 market will make considerable progress with the passage of time. This is because the Web 2.0 Age has ensured collaboration in an unprecedented manner, which, in turn, has provided a fillip to innovation and creativity. For example, through mashups, cartographic data from Google maps can be combined together with real-estate information, to provide a complete picture of one's geographical information. Using the masses in such a process, where they are themselves the creator of information is something that is not likely to fade away easily.
  
Web 2.0 refers to a set of applications that has revolutionized the nature of information sharing. It made its foray in of social networking with the likes of Facebook and Google and is now making its presence felt in the enterprise segment. Web 2.0 has enhanced the nature of collaboration among enterprises. The different forms of social networking within enterprises include blogging, wikis, really simple syndication (RSS), people database sites, online surveying, and so on.
  
The Web 2.0 market will witness accelerated demand in 2008. Enterprises will adopt Web 2.0 due to benefits offered, such as productive employees, increased rate of innovation as a result of greater amount of collaboration via social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo, and others.
  
Vendors that use the concept of social networking will garner a lot of attention. In fact, 2008 will witness established vendors such as Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle investing a lot on Web 2.0. Also, the Web 2.0 market is likely to undergo consolidation.
  
Our partners at Analysts Perspectives present an overview of analyst observations about the concept of Web 2.0 and their opinions and predictions about its future prospects.
  
Some key findings include enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies will grow strongly over the next five years reaching USD 4.6 billion globally by 2013, with social networking, mashups, and RSS capturing the greatest share; through 2010, the enterprise Web 2.0 product environment will experience considerable flux with continued product innovation and new entrants, including start-ups, large vendors, and traditional collaboration vendors; and companies with 1,000 or more employees are expected to spend USD 764 million on Web 2.0 in 2008.