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 Jaycees Magazine
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Tools like Twitter, Facebook,and MySpace are components ofsomething else you may haveheard people talking about: Web2.0, a popular term for Internetapplications in which the users areactively engaged in creating anddistributing Web content.Web 1.0 probably consisted ofthe Web sites you saw back in thelate 90s, which were nothing morethan fancy electronic brochures.Web 1.5 would have been some-thing like Amazon or eBay, siteson which one could buy, sell, andleave reviews. What Web 3.0 willlook like is anybody's guess!Let's look specifically at thethree applications mentioned.
Tweet, Tweet
Twitter — "Twitter is like textmessaging, only you can also doit from the web," says Dan Tynan,the author of the Tynan onTechnology blog. "Instead of
Web 2.0DEMYSTIFIED
sending a message to just oneperson, you can send it to multiplepeople at once. You can chooseto follow anyone's update (called"tweets") simply by clicking theFollow button on their profile, orvice-versa. The only rule is thateach tweet can be no longer than140 characters."According to ComScore, Twitteris the fastest-growing major Website in the United States with 17million registered users. That's up
By Ted Janusz
 
Vol
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 Jaycees Magazine
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3,000% from a year ago.This is fine, but what is thebusiness application of Twitter?In the past, says Natalie L.Pethouhoff, an analyst atForrester Research, companieswould depend on focus groups toget the reactions of customersduring a two-hour session that cancost $10,000 to $15,000. Nowcompanies like Comcast, Dell, HRBlock, Kodak, Southwest Airlinesand Whole Foods can "follow"what real customers are sayingabout them in real time. And theycan answer questions and resolvecomplaints from real customersimmediately.The
Toledo Blade 
even sendstweets that are fast-breakingheadlines, along with "tiny URLs,"linking back to the full story.
Top Four Websites
According to Google Trends,the number one website in theUnited States is Yahoo, followedby YouTube. The third most visit-ed site, is Facebook, followed byMySpace.YouTube was started by threeformer employees of PayPal, andthen sold to Google about a yearlater for $1.65 billion dollars.Unlike the other sites we'll dis-cuss that allow for the posting ofwords and photos, YouTube is thenumber one video-sharing Website. Best of all, you can postyour video on the site for free. Asimple Flip video camera (pricedat under $150 on
Amazon.com 
)can do the trick for you.The key to business successon YouTube:Do not post a video of yourcompany president in a head shotsaying blah-blah-blah. Nobodywill view it. To be noticed onYouTube, be sure to be humor-ous, offbeat or very personal.And take good care of yourcustomer. What kind of damagedo you think United Airlines' cus-tomer Dave Carroll has done withhis video "United Breaks Guitars"on YouTube? So far the videohas over 5 million hits.According to ComScore, in May2009, Facebook for the first timesurpassed MySpace in the num-ber of users in the United States.Facebook also stands as the num-ber two web-site in the restof the world(behindYouTube),surpassingMySpaceinternationallyin April 2008.Since itsusage hasdoubled in thelast year, totalFacebookusers outnum-ber MySpaceusers world-wide, by 200million to 125million.Facebookwas originallycreated byMarkZuckerman,intended foruse by his fel-low studentsof Harvard University as "TheFacebook." It was meant to be anonline replacement of the bookone receives as a freshman whenentering college or university con-taining photos and other informa-tion about your new classmates.Within 30 days, about half of thestudents of Harvard had a profileon the site. Facebook soonspread to other Boston area col-leges. Presently, approximately85 percent of all college studentshave a presence on Facebook.Facebook has been able toovertake MySpace as the numberone social networking site in theworld because it no longer has thestigma that it is "just for highschool or college students."Anyone may join Facebook.Sites likeMySpace andFacebook areso popularbecause socialnetworkingallows so muchmore than e-mail or textmessaging. Inaddition to writ-ing on someoneelse's "wall" onFacebook, shar-ing photographsand videos.With over a bil-lion photos andover 14 millionadded each day,Facebook is thenumber onephoto-sharingsite on theInternet. At aglance, you cansee what all ofyour "friends"are up to. And because youchoose your friends on Facebook,you can virtually eliminate spam,spam composes up to 90% of alle-mail.What is the business applica-tion of Facebook?
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SUCCESS STORIES
Blendtec
 — a Utah-based manu-facturer of blenders posted a seriesof videos entitled "Will it Blend?" Inthese videos the company attempt-ed to pulverize items such as golfballs and iPods. The first eightepisodes resulted in three milliondownloads in a week. Even betterfor Blendtec, they sold out of the$600 blender - in the first 24 hours.
Diet Coke + Mentos
 — Check outthe geysers this combination cre-ates! While Cocoa-Cola stayedaway from promoting this phenom-enon (perhaps out of fear of litiga-tion), Perfetti (the maker of Mentos) jumped in with both feet, postingboth a large link to YouTube on itsWeb site and sponsoring its owncontest. In the process, they sold alot of mints.
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