What are the most effective web tools can use for small firms to market products and services

Effective Web Tools Small Firms can use to market Products and Services

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Effective Web Tools Small Firms can use to market Products and Services

Executive Summary

Web 2 .0 technology heralds the second phase of development of the World Wide Web . The approach of Web 2 .0 is based on participation of the online user and community building . Emphasis is laid more on the interactivity between information seeker and information provider on the Web . The set of Web 2 .0

tools such as blogs , wikis , podcasts , RSS and social bookmarking provide small firms to expand their reach and involve potential customers in geographically far-flung areas in online communities centered on the firms . The community of customers not only gets customized information on products and services , but also participates in development of these products and services by giving their feedbacks and providing innovative ideas for improvement . Web 2 .0 envisages small firms reaching out to the whole world and associating a community of customers and users in practically all aspects of business

The objective of this is to assess how small firms can utilize the new Web 2 .0 approach to usher in overall growth in business . This will examine how Web 2 .0 tools can be effectively used to facilitate the development and marketing of products and services over the Internet

The coming of the new Web

The unprecedented development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT ) in the last couple of decades has opened up hitherto unexplored avenues of communicating , establishing contacts and making transactions . The Internet and the World Wide Web have integrated the world into a digital whole . As more and more people gain access to the Internet and go online , the focus shifts from the real to the virtual world . It is on the Net that people look for information , for news , for knowledge and increasingly for a sense of belonging in a virtual community . According to recent statistics from the Pew Internet American Life Project , 50 million Americans get news online , 73 per cent of American adults , 18 and older , are online , and more than half of all online Americans aged between 12 to 17 are online social networkers (Economist Intelligence Unit , 2007 ,

. 8 . Almost 50 per cent of the US internet access is now via always-on broadband connections . On a worldwide basis , one billion people around the globe now have access to the Internet . Mobile devices outnumber desktop computers by a factor of two (O 'Reilly Musser , 2006 . These statistics prove that the Internet is increasingly becoming the easiest and the fastest way to reach a majority of the people not only in the United States but in almost all the developed countries of the world . The rate at which the ICT revolution is pervading all walks of life and all parts of the world , it will not be long before a vast majority of the population of the entire world goes online...