Stephen Nold

The Importance of Web 2.0
December 7, 2007

For those still unfamiliar with Web 2.0, this technology makes possible most of the websites that we now love: MySpace.com, Amazon.com, Wikipedia.org, and this blog, just to name a few.  Essentially, Web 2.0 allows a user to interact with a website by entering information and having something result from this participation.  The information can be anything from choosing pizza as your favorite food in an online poll to deciding upon a move in an online game of chess at Yahoo!.  The result can be anything from a registration completion to a purchase, or something else entirely.

Without Web 2.0 technology, teenagers would not be able to embellish their MySpace profiles, readers could not pre-order books at Amazon.com, Wikipedia.org would be useless, and you would not be able to read this blog.

Web 2.0 technology enables users to interact with websites and message boards, allowing them to post items or search the internet.  This has allowed the popularity of sites like MySpace and Facebook to soar and become phenomenons onto themselves.  How can this help the Meeting industries? 

I have tried emphasizing, many places elsewhere, the virtues of individual services such as registration and matching systems, without really driving home the point that these are all parts of the Web 2.0 movement.  Online registration and matching systems take input from the user, manipulate and/or process it, and return tailored information.  Other Web 2.0 technologies currently being employed within the industry are online forums and message boards, where a tradeshow’s attendees can correspond together and form a virtual community.

Obviously, we have the tools to make great web sites, but the problem is that many people in our industry are not up to date, knowledge-wise, of the latest technology. 

For a tradeshow, an up-to-date website is of crucial importance.  This is not just a principal tenet for our particular industry, but rather a general rule for all businesses advertising themselves on the internet.  A tradeshow’s website is indicative, whether they like it or not, of the tradeshow itself.  If a tradeshow’s website looks lacking compared to today’s standards, then that reflects poorly upon the tradeshow itself.  If a tradeshow wants to impress potential attendees and exhibitors, then it should have an impressive web presence.  The website does not need to have all the bells and whistles, but the tools it does have should not be obsolete. 

We have already seen what Web 2.0 technology can do for sites like MySpace and Facebook, now just imagine what they can do for our industry.

Long story short: We have the tools.  Why not use them?

Posted by Stephen Nold on December 7, 2007 | Comments (2)