Web 2.0 denotes the ideas of collaboration, interactivity, animation, web sites that do things, sites that are smart and respond to you. The term is also connected with a slew of development resources that include AJAX, AIR, FLEX, GEARS and the idea of Mashups - integrating two or more applications through their APIs to form a unique application. Web 2.0 apps are everywhere. You can checkout the "Top 100" for 2008 from Webware here: http://news.cnet.com/html/ww/100/2008/winners.html

But Web 2.0 is not just for social networking or consumer sites like Facebook, Flickr and You Tube. Business to business marketers are taking notice as well. Web 2.0 applications are popping up all over the web to let users get the right information quickly by using web sites more interactively. On the visual side - Web 2.0 apps can look cool, can be immersive, colorful and graphical (yet fast) with big clear buttons, and movement that draws the user in and makes using an app understandable and fun...

On corporate sites web apps go by a variety of catchy names like widgets, configurators, calculators, wizards... Whatever you call them, they are addressing some long-standing problems. Do any of these sound familiar?

Customers want instant gratification. If you're hoping customers will put up with reading every page on your site and filling out your form...you should know that many bail out when they see the form page. A "quote creator" which calculates a quote is way better than a form you are asked to fill out which promises a quote. And yes, you can capture the same customer info. as the form for lead gen.

Product portfolios at many companies are large and unclear, plus customers live in the world of needing solutions to their problems and marketers live in the world of having products to sell. A "product selector" or "solutions tool" can bridge that gap by letting users identify their needs to get targeted information instantly without the usual immense investment in reading.

These are just a few examples. What ideas do you have to give your web site users instant targeted information? If you've ever said something like, "I wish there was this thing where users could click and then 'it' would tell them...?" Well that's probably a web app in the making.

Presentek is up on the development tools and processes to deliver innovative applications for your site. Contact us to discuss your ideas at 408-354-6051.