2011 is a new year and the beginning of a new decade, and hopefully the dawn of a new economy. How many times have we heard that?

 

In the context of working our way out of the recession, this is indeed going to have to be the case. While we have always maintained that our services have to be priced to allow the smallest businesses and nonprofits to take advantage of the web and web technologies, not everyone has played fair across the economy.

 

During the past 2 decades large banking interests and large investors adopted a predatory approach to investing, lending and executing business. They were all about "book value", "turning" profits, consolidation, merger and acquisition and making a quick buck.

While the last 12 years have produced a huge number of successes, we've also had to literally hold our noses. As an example, online transaction processing businesses have seen too much consolidation. PayPal bought Verisign and then eBay bought PayPal. PayPal now has the largest internet traffic of any "financial institution" in the U.S. surpassing 30 Million unique visitors in 2010. Yet, PayPal has so far avoided regulation.

 

 

1. The web is changing - again. Social Media or SoMe means much, much more than just keeping in touch with friends. It is quickly becoming a new way to reach customers and donors, and will soon be a new platform for transacting business. Tracking SoMe activities is now a focus for Readywebgo as we move into the new decade. Sure, setting you up with a Twitter account with a great Twitter theme or helping you use Facebook effectively are key, But staying out in front of the "tool space" is also going to take a lot of work.

 

2. Web 2.0 - Readywebgo is a Web 2.0 design and development firm having long promoted and provided the tools for website owners to create dynamic content. BUT there are aspects of Web 2.0 that have been overused and produced negative results. The big push has been made to make the web more interactive and dynamic but the result, in many cases, has been a less customer or user-centered environment and lots of poor design.

Definition of Web 2.0: "Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web" - Wikipedia

 

What commonly occurs is website owners are forsaking good user-centered design for widgets and gadgets and virtually abandoning their websites for Social Media (SoMe) "sites" like Facebook, Twiiter and blogs (see below). This can have disastrous results like signing over your content and abrogated copyright privileges, loss of website traffic, diminished search engine rankings, etc.

3. Blogs are not Websites - Blogging is big. And it is a good thing. But there are pitfalls to having the power to create content, upload images and to invite people to comment on what you say and do. A blog or Facebook "page" can lead to problems like exposing your weaknesses to competitors, poor writing skills, creating too much or irrelevant content, failing to maintain your mission and strategy while giving into expediency.

 

While we support blogging and its positive attributes, it is vitally important to maintain, improve and protect your website, customers and image. And get started on the right foot - here is a great article Why Every Entrepreneur Should Write and remember - always point back to your website!

 

For more about this and other topics, feel free to follow us on Twitter (a great micro-blogging tool) at www.twitter.com/readywebgo or comment on this blog post below!