The rising popularity of user-driven online services, including MySpace, Wikipedia, and YouTube, has drawn attention to a group of technological developments known as Web 2.0. These technologies, which rely on user collaboration, include Web services, peer-to-peer networking, blogs, podcasts, and online social networks.

Respondents to a recent McKinsey survey show widespread but careful interest in this trend.¹ Expressing satisfaction with their Internet investments so far, they say that Web 2.0 technologies are strategic and that they plan to increase these investments. But companies aren’t necessarily relying on the best-known Web 2.0 trends, such as blogs; instead, they place the greatest importance on technologies that enable automation and networking.

During an online discussion convened to dig more deeply into these results, it became clear that companies using Web 2.0 technologies have developed a new way of bringing technology into businesses. And, according to many participants, this new approach is easier to implement and more flexible than traditional top-down approaches. Discussion participants are seeing some business impact from these technologies and seem generally optimistic about their benefits, particularly in how they help a company refine its strategy.