MSc dissertation - João Clara Silva

Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Faculdade de Ciências Económicas e Empresarias

When Business Intelligence meets Web 2.0
Can Web 2.0 tools improve Business Intelligence gathering?

Student: João Clara Silva
Advisor: Paulo Cardoso do Amaral

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Masters of Science in Business Administration, at Universidade Católica Portuguesa,
May, 2010.

Can new Web 2.0 tools improve Business Intelligence gathering?

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all who accompanied me while I wrote this and particularly to:

 Professor Paulo Amaral for the effort, commitment and patience dedicated to my
investigation and dissertation development.

 My friends for pushing me forward with this endeavor and also for letting me lay
back and relax in the appropriate times, whether they are in Portugal or any other
part in the World.

 My family for pulling my ears and constantly reminding me how important this work
is.

 My colleagues who have taken time to help me and have shown their interest in and
concern for my work.

Just over night all things have arisen new.


Abstract

This MSc dissertation proposes a framework model that assesses how Web 2.0
principles can improve Business Intelligence gathering as well as contribute to improving
corporate access to information and develop better Business Intelligence services that
fit employees’ particular needs in aggregating, generating, and facilitating access to
information.

The framework model results from aggregating the knowledge and theories
obtained by researching existing frameworks and it defines the following Web 2.0
principles: contribution to data generation, openness to collective intelligence, ability to
use as a platform, technological accessibility, openness to user contribution and
experience, and portability promotion. The answer to the research question is
developed through an evaluation of these principles' impact in Business Intelligence
gathering.

Web 2.0 matters for Business Intelligence since it meets the challenges of its
current limitations. Web 2.0 provides access to an alternative market of cheaper sources
to obtain intelligence from online analytical data providers. It brings new tools that can
be easily programmed, saving the time and effort spent on gathering intelligence. It
facilitates information diffusion to multiple targets with the help of tools such as RSS
(Real Simple Syndication). It limits the information output of systems to what is essential
through innovative ways of filtering information, such as tagging and folksonomies. It
incorporates tacit knowledge from users and promotes user contributions to and
participation with intelligence tools, which enhances the overall user experience with
Business Intelligence software.

The dissertation's conclusion is that Web 2.0 can improve Business Intelligence
gathering and should therefore be considered by companies for investment.


Resumo

Esta dissertação propõe um modelo que define como os princípios da Web 2.0
podem melhorar a recolha de Business Intelligence e, simultaneamente, contribuir para
o aperfeiçoamento da informação empresarial e dos serviços que agregam, criam e
facilitam o acesso a essa informação aos colaboradores.

Este modelo resulta da agregação de conhecimento e teorias obtidas de modelos
já existentes e define os seguintes princípios da Web 2.0: contribuição para a criação de
dados, abertura para a collective intelligence, capacidade de uso como plataforma,
acessibilidade tecnológica, abertura à contribuição e experimentação do utilizador e
promoção da portabilidade. A resposta à pergunta de investigação deriva da avaliação
do impacto destes princípios na recolha de Business Intelligence.

A Web 2.0 é um tema relevante para a evolução de Business Intelligence uma vez
que alcança os desafios das suas limitações. A Web 2.0 gera fontes de informação
alternativas baratas através de online analytical data providers. Traz novas ferramentas
que podem ser facilmente programadas, poupando o tempo e o esforço investidos na
recolha de inteligência. Facilitam a difusão de informação a diversas pessoas com a
ajuda de ferramentas como o RSS. Limitam a quantidade de informação gerada pelos
sistemas de BI através de ferramentas inovadoras que filtram informação, como o
tagging e folksonomies. Incorporam conhecimento tácito dos utilizadores e promovem
o envolvimento, contribuição e participação dos utilizadores com as ferramentas de
Business Intelligence.

Como conclusão, esta dissertação indica que a Web 2.0 pode melhorar a recolha
de Business Intelligence e, assim sendo, deve ser considerada como uma oportunidade
de investimento.


List of Abbreviations

AJAX: Asynchronous Javascript and XML

API: Application Programming Interface

BI: Business Intelligence

CI: Competitive Intelligence

DSS: Decision Support Systems

INE: Instituto Nacional de Estatística

MMORPG: Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

MP3: Mpeg - 1/2 Audio Layer 3

OLAP: Online Analytical Processing

P2P: Peer-to-peer

REST: Representational State Transfer

RIA: Rich Internet Application

ROI: Return on Investment

RSS: Real Simple Syndication

SaaS: Software as a Service

SME: Small and Medium sized Enterprises

SOA: Service Oriented Architecture

SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol

SS: Social Software - "Any website or application which connects users with similar
interests and ideas together, via the internet, can be described as social software"
(Perks, 2003).

URL: Uniform Resource Locator

XML: eXtensible Markup Language


Table of Contents

I. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1

1.1. State of the Question ............................................................................................ 1

1.2. Purpose ................................................................................................................. 2

1.3. Methodology ........................................................................................................ 5

1.4. Structure ............................................................................................................... 6

II. State-of-the-art ........................................................................................................... 7

2.1. Web 2.0 ................................................................................................................ 7

2.1.1. Concepts and definitions ................................................................................ 7

2.1.1.1. Web 2.0 as the result of Internet's evolution ............................................... 8

2.1.1.2. Web 2.0 as a buildup word or momentary hype .......................................... 9

2.1.1.3. Web 2.0 as a new set of tools or services ..................................................... 9

2.1.1.4. Web 2.0 as a philosophy ............................................................................ 10

2.1.2. Tools and applications in the Web 2.0 world ................................................ 11

2.1.2.1. Blogs .......................................................................................................... 12

2.1.2.2. Microblogging ............................................................................................ 14

2.1.2.3. Wikis .......................................................................................................... 14

2.1.2.4. Tags, Folksonomy and Social Bookmarking ................................................ 15

2.1.2.5. RSS (Real Simple Syndication) .................................................................... 17

2.1.2.6. Multimedia sharing .................................................................................... 18

2.1.2.7. Audio blogging and podcasting .................................................................. 19

2.1.2.8. Video blogging ........................................................................................... 19

2.1.2.9. Mash-up .................................................................................................... 20

2.1.2.10. Social networking .................................................................................... 20


2.1.2.11. MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) ................. 20

2.1.2.12. Newer services and applications .............................................................. 22

2.1.3. Technologies Supporting Web 2.0 ................................................................ 22

2.1.3.1. AJAX .......................................................................................................... 23

2.1.3.2. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) ................................................................. 24

2.1.3.3. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) .......................................................... 25

2.1.3.4. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) ................................................ 25

2.1.3.5. Microformats ............................................................................................. 26

2.1.3.6. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) ....................................................... 26

2.2. Business Intelligence ........................................................................................... 26

2.2.1. Business (Intelligence) .................................................................................. 27

2.2.1.1. Why BI? ..................................................................................................... 27

2.2.1.2. Who uses BI? ............................................................................................. 28

2.2.1.3. How is BI being used? ................................................................................ 29

2.2.2. Concepts and definitions .............................................................................. 30

2.2.2.1. BI as a support for decision-making ........................................................... 31

2.2.2.2. BI as a technology ...................................................................................... 31

2.2.2.3. BI as a systematic approach to information and data finding ..................... 32

2.2.2.4. BI in general terms ..................................................................................... 32

2.2.2.5. Competitive Intelligence (CI) ...................................................................... 33

2.2.3. Purpose of BI ................................................................................................ 33

2.2.4. Advantages of BI ........................................................................................... 35

2.2.5. Potential drawbacks and risks of BI ............................................................... 36

2.2.6. BI tools ......................................................................................................... 38


III. Model development ................................................................................................. 40

3.1. Procedure conducted .......................................................................................... 40

3.2. Assessing Business Intelligence as a measurable concept .................................... 41

3.3. Building the new framework for Web 2.0 ............................................................ 43

3.3.1. Contribution to data generation ................................................................... 45

3.3.2. Openness to collective intelligence ............................................................... 46

3.3.3. Ability to use as a platform ........................................................................... 49

3.3.4. Technological accessibility ............................................................................ 50

3.3.5. Openness to user contribution and experience............................................. 51

3.3.6. Portability promotion ................................................................................... 53

IV. Discussion ................................................................................................................ 55

4.1. Contribution to data generation .......................................................................... 55

4.2. Openness to collective intelligence ..................................................................... 56

4.3. Ability to use as a platform .................................................................................. 59

4.4. Technological accessibility................................................................................... 60

4.5. Openness to user contribution and experience ................................................... 62

4.6. Portability promotion .......................................................................................... 64

V. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 68

5.1. Concerns for future research............................................................................... 71

VI. References ............................................................................................................... 72


I. Introduction

1.1. State of the Question

The Internet has been gaining new applications given that more people
recognize the advantages driven by its social networking capabilities (Bernal, 2009;
Snee, 2008; Mechant, 2009; Mason, 2008), and the internet's role as a new worldwide
database for untreated data (O'Reilly, 2005; Anderson, 2007; Musser, 2007), whose
contributors are Businesses and, more recently, private users (Gillmor, 2004; Downes,
2004; Anderson, 2007).

The Internet is "formed by the global interconnection of (...) computers,
communications entities and information systems through the use of (...) communication
standards, procedures and formats (...) called protocols. It was not until 1994 that the
general public began to be aware of the Internet by way of the World Wide Web
application. The Internet is the global information system that includes communication
capabilities and many high level applications. The Web is one such application" (Kahn,
1999).

The term "Web 2.0" made its first appearance in an article written by Darcy
DiNucci in 1999 (Smith, 2009). At this time, while the Internet was in early development,
DiNucci foresaw that the capability of displaying texts and graphics could be exported to
devices other than desktop computers. (such as TVs and cell phones). Today, we take
most of these technological advancements for granted. While she did not expound the
actual definition of Web 2.0, DiNucci did trigger an important fact about it - we no
longer depend only on a computer to access the Internet. Today's Web-ready portable
devices allow steady social connection regardless of time and location.

It was only in 2004 that Web 2.0 became a common term throughout the Web
community. The reason behind all the excitement was its official presentation by Dale
Dougherty at a conference between O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International
(O'Reilly, 2005a). Dougherty noted that "far from having "crashed", the Web still had

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exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity". From then on,
"Web 2.0" has been a term widely used and a concept more fully explored and there is
still no common agreement on what it stands for. Some agree (Madden & Fox, 2006;
Mechant, 2009; Snee, 2008; Shawn, 2005) that it is nothing but a meaningless marketing
buzzword, and others accept it as the new conventional wisdom (O'Reilly, 2005a).

From a user perspective, early Web users were treated solely as consumers;
recipients of static information, without place for comment. Users were encouraged to
listen, to receive, and become subservient (Mason, 2008). Today, even "the mass media
is being challenged by user-generated content" (Musser, 2007).

1.2. Purpose

According to the data available at "Internet World Stats" (IWS, 2009), from 2000
to 2009, Web usage in Europe grew by 297% and today more than 52% of Europeans
surf the Web. Additionally, in Portugal, the existing penetration rate goes over 41.8%
and recorded a growth of 79% since 2000. Even though these results do not refer to the
extent nor the ways which people use the Web, its evolution to a commonly accessible
asset is becoming undeniable. As announced by INE (Instituto Nacional de Estatística), in
2002 only 15.1% of all Portuguese households had Internet access, but more recent data
(INE, 2007) show that "in the first quarter of 2007, 48,3% of Portuguese households had
access to a computer at home and 39,6% to the Internet", which means that almost 82%
of households with a computer have access to the Internet.

Within a World population of almost 7 billion (UN World population prospects,
2009), 22.86% are internet users. According to the website Worldometers (WOM,
2010), these users generate over 170 billion emails, 710 thousand blog posts and about
1 billion Google searches a day.

These figures reflect the growth of Internet awareness among users. Thus user
acquaintance with the Web becomes imperative for businesses, particularly for those

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who aim for a Web-way of practice and assessing how the Web can benefit businesses
becomes more urgent.

Currently researchers foresee two ways for companies to use the Web. Some
researchers focus on the use of its technologies, tools and applications by the company
as a way to improve customer-company relations (O'Reilly, 2005; Musser, 2007; Hoegg
et al., 2006; ); while others (Tredinnick, 2006; Hoegg et al., 2006; Bernal, 2009; McGee,
2008; Marshall, 2008; Lamb, 2004; McAfee, 2006) share a view on how Web 2.0 can
generate benefits inside the firewall (i.e. as part of the company's internal activities and
processes), namely in providing actionable information for decision-making in an effort-
less and intuitive way.

These two tasks have, so far, been Business Intelligence's responsibility. BI
systems have been in existence since 1958, when Hans Peter Luhn first defined BI as
"the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of present facts in such a way as to guide
actions towards a desired goal" (Luhn, 1958). Today, the purpose of BI is to "improve the
timeliness and quality of the input to the decision process" (Negash et al., 2003) with the
help of "applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, reporting on
and providing access to data" (Power, 2005).

Golfarelli has defined BI as "the process of turning data into information and
then into knowledge" (Golfarelli et al., 2004) thus implying that data collection is
performed by other mechanisms. Furthermore, BI as a term "replaced decision support,
executive information systems, and management information systems" (Thomsen, 2003)
for the purpose of "facilitating managerial work" (Negash et al., 2003), which means
that BI mainly functions as an asset for internal decision-making. Hence, its modus
operandi falls under the "inside the firewall" perspective mentioned previously for Web
2.0.

BI services are "big businesses" (Power, 2001), and are only affordable by
powerful companies. The small and medium enterprises (SME) "face additional hurdles,
such as tighter budgets, less sophistication and organizational knowledge, technology

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hurdles and fewer people, meaning less time to spend on planning and analysis" (Canes,
2009). Additionally, "many companies that purchase powerful analysis and business
intelligence tools don't use them effectively" (Foody, 2009). In contrast, Web 2.0 tools
constitute a cheaper (while not free) approach to BI, dependent only on user
acquaintance with the Web, to deliver information and knowledge. Furthermore, Web
2.0, in contrast with BI, allows the integration of tacit knowledge into its tools
(Rodrigues, 2002).

Thus, Web 2.0 presents itself as an opportunity for these small and medium
companies to improve their current access to information and develop better BI services
that fit their particular needs in aggregating, generating and facilitating access to
information for their employees.

For the abovementioned reasons, investigating the current states of Web
development and Businesses Intelligence are primary in answering the research
question of this dissertation:

 Can new Web 2.0 tools improve Business Intelligence gathering?

In order to answer this question, the following questions are also addressed in
this work, as they present particular assessments on how Web 2.0 tools can help
improve BI gathering:

 Can new Web 2.0 tools help organizations to perform better Business Intelligence?
 Can these new tools contribute to better decision making? (In other words, do they
constitute an update of current decision support systems?)
 Are Web 2.0 tools only applicable for Web-knowledgeable workers?

Accordingly, this MSc dissertation intends to demonstrate the Web's impact on
doing business and more specifically to explore the benefits of using the latest Web 2.0
tools to improve and provide BI collection and delivery systems throughout
corporations. Additionally, this paper also aims to provide the reader with some insight
on how to facilitate Web 2.0 implementation in an organization.

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1.3. Methodology

Developing an answer to this dissertation’s research question will be achieved in
two steps. The first step is a review of the literature, mostly ranging from 1999 to 2010,
which refers to Web 2.0 and BI sources. This review is the result of exploratory research
to identify noteworthy articles through cross-reference analysis. The majority of the
references found are academic, while others are based on professional reports and
experiences written by qualified personnel in the fields of Web 2.0 and BI.

The second step is the development of a new framework model for understanding
Web 2.0’s importance for BI. The new framework model will be developed according to
the following structure:
1. Developing a list of the most common Web 2.0 tools;
2. Constructing a new framework of features that categorize Web 2.0 that is based on
definitions and characteristics offered by researched articles;
3. Applying those features so as to understand their impact on Business Intelligence
and then identifying the Web 2.0 tools that would be of a more appropriate use to
improve BI.

While the dissertation’s new framework model for understanding Web 2.0 and
its implications for BI is developed by extensive research, the framework model is not
complete and thus has the capacity for future development through even more
extensive research of the current literature. Nevertheless, more than enough evidence
has been gathered into the new framework model to provide a positive answer to the
dissertation's research question.

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1.4. Structure

This dissertation will now be developed in five sections. The first of these will be
a presentation of the main concepts, definitions and ideas behind Web 2.0 and Business
Intelligence. These are treated separately in order to build a sound state-of-the-art of
their limitations, applicability and evolution. The next session creates a new framework
model to explain the main Web 2.0 principles followed by a discussion which evaluates
the extent to which Web 2.0 can contribute to the task of Business Intelligence. Finally,
a conclusion is made followed by a presentation of suggestions on what future
developments might need to be further scrutinized.

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II. State-of-the-art

This chapter scrutinizes Web 2.0 regarding its concepts and definitions and seeks
to explore in further detail the current tools and applications existent and their
associated technologies. The background research accomplished on Business
Intelligence will also be addressed as an attempt to review the current concepts and
definitions, tools and applications to businesses, as well as current advantages and
potential drawbacks.

2.1. Web 2.0

2.1.1. Concepts and definitions

Although the internet has existed for many decades, the platform for exchanging
documents, also known as “Web”, was not conceived until 1989. The Web is a
conceptual framework of information exchange utilizing globally interconnected
networks (internet). Over time it underwent several mutations, firstly being dominated
by large multinational corporations to target new and existing markets, but in mid-2004
it assumed a new position as a new age of Web users and developers began to emerge
(Mason, 2008).

In "What is Web 2.0 - Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next
Generation of Software" Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly, 2005a) mentions that the concept of the
Web 2.0 began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and Medialive
International, when Dale Dougherty 1 noted that new applications and sites were
popping up with surprising regularity, revealing what appeared to be a new turning
point for the Web. Nevertheless, no commonly agreed definition of Web 2.0 yet exists
among Web 2.0 instigators, since some still think of it as a "meaningless marketing
buzzword" while others accept it as "the new conventional wisdom" (O'Reilly, 2005).

1
General manager of Maker Media division at O'Reilly Media, an American media company that publishes books and Web sites and
produces conferences on computer technology topics.

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In fact, regardless of O'Reilly's effort to elucidate on its definition, "Web 2.0
remains a problematic concept" (Mechant, 2008) as some authors argue that "it was, at
that time, too early to rely on them exclusively" (Depauw, 2008) and that O'Reilly's
"delineation of Web 2.0 is in many ways quite nebulous, outlining the characteristics
themes of Web 2.0 approaches to information services, rather than specific technologies
(...) creating a picture that is frustratingly short on detail" (Tredinnick, 2006). Other
authors believe that "Web 2.0" is a mere buzz term created to market social Web-
applications, which "resulted in many considering it a commodity interest" (Mason,
2008). In his book "The Cult of the Amateur" Andrew Keen (Keen, 2007) suggests that
what "the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world
around us rather than deep analysis". Keen's vision of the Web emphasizes the poor
quality of content delivered to the user "when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste
meets mob rule".

Summarizing the literature examined, it is possible to identify at least five ways
to view Web 2.0. Some relate it to the natural evolution of the Internet, others
understand it as a recent hype or marketing buzzword, a third group associates Web 2.0
to a new set of internet tools and services, a minority consider it to be a new
philosophy, and lastly, some share a more skeptical view about its real utility. These
views are briefly sketched below.

2.1.1.1. Web 2.0 as the result of Internet's evolution

Identifying Web 2.0 as the result of internet's evolution is John Musser (Musser,
2007) in "Web 2.0 - Principles and Best Practices". He defined it as "a set of economic,
social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of
the internet - a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation,
openness, and network effects". Later on, his colleague Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly, 2006)
suggested in "Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again" that "Web 2.0 is the business
revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform".
Indeed, much of the Web 2.0 research is associated with this new platform that allows

8


"a paradigm shift (from delivering products) to delivering services that can be used and
combined with other services in new ways and harnessing growth of interactivity with
end users in new ways" (Bernal, 2009). In the same line of reasoning, "Web 2.0 has
therefore been used largely metaphorically to suggest a major software upgrade to the
world wide Web" (Tredinnick, 2006) and "although it sounds like a new generation of
technical development, it is in fact a phenomenal change of the Web" (Chan et al.,
2007).

2.1.1.2. Web 2.0 as a buildup word or momentary hype

Describing Web 2.0 as a buildup word or momentary hype is to accept the term
as a "conceptual umbrella under which analysts, marketers and other stakeholders in the
tech field could huddle the new generation of internet applications and businesses that
were emerging to form the "participatory Web" as we know it today" (Madden & Fox,
2006). It has been more recently asserted that the term "Web 2.0" has became too
popular to be useful as a research concept, and some authors, like Peter Mechant
(2009), author of "A Patchwork of Online Community-based Systems", prefer to
consider the concept of "social software" to be a more appropriate term when referring
to the discourse of innovators and researchers. Helene Snee (Snee, 2008), in "Web 2.0
as a Social Science Research Tool", also agrees with Mechant's perspective and even
states that "Web 2.0 is a social medium which creates and facilitates interactions
between people, in a way that the Web was supposed to be in the early days". Russell
Shawn (Shawn, 2005) writes in “Web 2.0 Does Not Exist” that "Web 2.0 is a marketing
slogan" since the changes occurring to the Web are incremental and therefore cannot
be classified as a pre-defined package that was meant to improve the existing Web.

2.1.1.3. Web 2.0 as a new set of tools or services

Viewing Web 2.0 as a new set of tools or services, Macaskill and Owen
(Macaskill and Owen, 2006) in "Web 2.0 To Go" state that Web 2.0 "describes a range of
increasingly popular Web services that offer users dynamic interactive models of

9


communication combined with the ability to create and share content". "The Web of
documents has morphed into a Web of data. Now we're looking to a new set of tools to
aggregate and remix microcontent in new and useful ways" (Macmanus and Porter,
2005). James McGee (McGee, 2008) supports the same view. In “Email is for Old
People” he asserts that Web 2.0 "describes a collection of Web-based technologies
which share a user-focused approach to design and functionality, where users
participate in content creation and editing through open collaboration between
members of communities of practice". User control is one of the foundations of Web 2.0,
which then enables "users to extract information and data and reuse that information
and data in a flexible way, and enabling them in the process perhaps even to change the
structure of the information system itself" (Tredinnick, 2006). Associated with user
control is users' collaboration since "Web 2.0 represents an environment where
communities of participants with common interests contribute to a collective intelligence
(...) where dynamic, hardware-independent applications can be developed with the help
of customers" (Connolly, 2007). Therefore it is common to think that collaboration in the
development of interfaces with the help of customers allows "end users to view data
quicker" (Bernal, 2009). "Web 2.0 can be seen as triggering a set of recursive social and
technical advances (...) fuelled by a desire for increased openness in the information
economy" (Mason, 2008).

2.1.1.4. Web 2.0 as a philosophy

Web 2.0 as a philosophy is closely related to the view presented above, being
"defined as the philosophy of mutually maximizing collective intelligence and added
value for each participant by formalized and dynamic information sharing and creation"
(Hoegg et al., 2006). This dissertation does not develop the concept of Web 2.0 as a
philosophy but more as a new set of tools and services since this provides the best
measurable way of analysis and is closely related to the outcome of the Web as an
evolution of the Internet. Moreover, this new set of tools can be examined and
evaluated according to their appropriateness for Business Intelligence.

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2.1.2. Tools and applications in the Web 2.0 world

The first step towards defining Web 2.0 as a source for new tools and
applications came from Tim O'Reilly's (O'Reilly, 2005b) allusion to the concept of Web
2.0 as a platform. In his blog post "Web 2.0: Compact Definition", O'Reilly states that
"Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0
applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform:
delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people
use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users,
while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others,
creating network effects through an "architecture of participation", and going beyond
the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences". In a later post, he added
the following statement to his vision: "Web 2.0 is (...) an attempt to understand the rules
for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that
harness network effects to get better the more people use them - harnessing collective
intelligence." (O'Reilly, 2006).

Some authors, such as Wendy Macaskill and Dylan Owen (Macaskill and Owen,
2006), even believe that the Web may become the (free) operating platform of choice in
the future over paid platforms, such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. Bearing this
idea in mind, there is an obvious interest for businesses to exploit the cost and
operational advantages of such a platform.

In his paper "Enterprise 2.0", Andrew McAfee (McAfee, 2006) calls Web 2.0
technologies the "new digital platforms for generating, sharing and refining information
(...) popular on the internet". However, he prefers the label "enterprise 2.0" in order "to
focus only on those platforms that companies can buy or build in order to make visible
the practices and outputs of their knowledge workers". In a similar manner, the concept
of "intranet 2.0" is born, defined as "a paradigm shift that's been building in recent years
where collaboration and free speech reign and users are encouraged to network and
form the content of the intranet site" (Scarf, 2006).

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Conversely, in "What is Web 2.0?" Paul Anderson (Anderson, 2007) states that
new Web 2.0 tools and applications "are not really technologies as such, but services (or
user processes) built using the building blocks of the technologies and open standards
that underpin the internet and the Web. He calls them concatenations, which means
they make use of existing services.

Despite the variety of interpretations, these new tools have their origins in the
Internet. The Internet has evolved in such a way that new "Web 2.0 services allow users
to increasingly treat the Web, not their pc, as their preferred platform of use" and this is
possible because "Web 2.0 sites and services now provide a range of increasingly
sophisticated and often (free applications) that are beginning to resemble (and
challenge) desktop programs in terms of functionality" (Macaskill and Owen, 2006).

The most relevant of the new Web 2.0 tools and applications presented and
analyzed below:

2.1.2.1. Blogs

Blogs first appeared in the mid-1990s as a simplified way of publishing to the
Web and they represent "an individual's serial journal-like informal postings, typically,
but not necessarily, written by a relative expert and solicits comments from readers"
(McGee, 2008).

Blogs can be characterized by their "greater ease of Web publishing (...) allowing
almost everyone with only a little technological savvy to participate in the discursive
space of the internet" and are viewed as a "cheap way of publishing and became a way
of aggregating Web content for particular ends" (Tredinnick, 2006). Blogs are also used
"as a way for experts to quickly publish their opinions on a plethora of topics for readers
to read and respond to. The collaborative power of blogs usually comes in the form of
reader comments that most blogging technology allows for" (Marshall, 2008). The
collaboration element of blogs, also highlighted in several other Web 2.0 tools, gave

12


birth to the blogosphere, i.e. "a "world" of bloggers operating in their own environment"
(Anderson, 2007).

Blogs are commonly recognized for being "personal, opinionated, unfiltered and
often abandoned after six months", although "subject specialists blogs offer a rich mine
of information for those wanting current updates in their area of interest or expertise. A
blog though, is also an interactive tool. It allows and invites feedback and commentary
on what is posted as well as providing extensive linking to content from other blogs and
sites" (Macaskill and Owen, 2006). Moreover, "bloggers have begun to incorporate
multimedia into their blogs" (Anderson, 2007), such as music, photos, videos (video
blogs, or vlogs) and, "increasingly, bloggers can upload material directly from their
mobile phones (mob-blogging)" (Anderson, 2007).

Although Blogging has existed for over 20 years, it is taking its first steps in a
business environment. Their business application is important since, for instance, "they
may be written by one or two knowledge-area specialists or can be used to generate
input from everyone (...) often used within the corporate website or an extranet
environment to demonstrate expertise to prospective clients, create an environment of
inclusiveness and even to support a work-life balance" (Scarff, 2006).

Information in a blog is mainly structured with the help of links, i.e. "hyperlink, a
reference to a document that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed
automatically" (Wikipedia, 2010). Paul Anderson (Anderson, 2007) aggregated some
examples of linking used within a blog:

 Permalink: permanent URL which is generated by the blogging system and is applied
to a particular post. If the item is moved within the database, the permalink stays the
same;
 Trackback (or pingback): allows a blogger (A) to notify another blogger (B) that they
have referenced or commented on one of blogger B's posts;
 Blogroll: list of links to other blogs that a particular blogger likes or finds useful.

13


2.1.2.2. Microblogging

“Microblogging is a new form of communications in which users can describe
their current status in short posts distributed by instant messages, mobile phones, email
or the Web” (Java et al., 2007). Microblogging is provided by several services including
Twitter, Jaiku and more recently Pownce, which provide a light-weight and easy form of
communication that enables users to broadcast and share information about their
activities, opinions and status, either to the general public or within a social network
(Java et al., 2007). Twitter, for example, allows a user to provide “followers” with
regular updates within 140 characters at time, bringing the concept of quick and cheap
publishing to the internet (Bushey, 2010).

Companies of all shapes and sizes are seizing the opportunities of this digital
word-of-mouth. For big companies, Twitter represents a way to offer special discounts
and opportunities, and for small businesses it presents a free and efficient alternative to
promote goods and services directly to customers. Hence, Twitter has become a new
way to deal with customer relationship management (Ankeny, 2009). Most importantly,
it has become a quick and free way for information to be distributed throughout
companies, regardless of employee location, as long as an internet access is provided.
Businesses that rely on contact lists or are event-driven are positioned to maximize this
social media opportunity (Ankeny, 2009).

2.1.2.3. Wikis

Wikis are a "means of publishing to the Web. Wiki supports the creation of full-
scale websites with its combination of templates, authoring tools and audit trails"
(Tredinnick, 2006). One of the best known examples is Wikipedia, an online
encyclopedia accessible and edited online by anyone. "The wiki is a tool to enable
collaborative authoring" and "the power to edit and update information goes to the
users" (Tredinnick, 2006). This power is also its major drawback since wikis can
misinform or even disseminate false material in the fact that "most reference materials

14


are developed by a small minority of a community, organization, or society" and "the
amount of content included in a wiki will often greatly overshadow most official
reference documents" (Marshall, 2008). Therefore, only so much can be said about the
quality and reliability of its content, or about its community of contributors since "the
experiment of Wikipedia may be a revolutionary experiment in trust, but the number of
users simply perusing Web content far outweighs those that edit it" (Mason, 2008). As a
matter of fact, only 1.37% of Wikipedia's registered users are active contributors to its
content (Wikipedia, 2010). And this raises the question of whether this collaboration
tool really works for environments with less than a couple of hundred users, like small
to medium sized businesses.

Undoubtedly, a wiki "allows multiple authors and editors to contribute
simultaneously and on an ongoing basis to a document" (McGee, 2008) and this is the
main reason why wikis constitute a revolutionary Web 2.0 tool. Paul Anderson (2007)
calls it a "collaborative tool that facilitates the production of a group work" that "unlike
blogs (...) allows previous versions to be examined, and a rollback function, which
restores previous versions". Its major advantage is that they are "free, simple to use and
set up", which makes them "ideal for specific projects and collaborative knowledge
sharing, especially if your group members are in more than one location. For some wikis,
"levels of access and content security can be set" (Macaskill and Owen, 2006). In
businesses wikis "can be used to create a knowledge base or reference for staff,
researchers, sales teams or customer service representatives" (Scarff, 2006).

2.1.2.4. Tags, Folksonomy and Social Bookmarking

The desire to find and share information among small groups, teams and
communities of practice has, not surprisingly, led to the development of a number of
shared bookmarking systems (Millen et al., 2005).

"One of the first large-scale applications of tagging was seen with the
introduction of Joshua Schacter's del.icio.us website, which launched the "social

15


bookmarking" phenomenon" (Anderson, 2007). "This bookmarking service allows users
to store their bookmarks online" and to have them "described, tagged, collaboratively
shared, and searched for by others" (Macaskill and Owen, 2006).

The free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) led to the
appearance of the term "folksonomy", officially coined by Thomas Vander Wal (Wal,
2005). Folksonomy is usually characterized by "end users of a website tagging or adding
keywords to content. Some of the first applications of folksonomy were photos and
internet bookmarks" (Marshall, 2008).

"Folksonomy describes the emergent classification structures that arise as users
"tag" information for their own ends (...) to aid in the classification of information and
knowledge (Tredinnick, 2006). "A folksonomy (a categorization system developed over
time by folks) is in some ways the opposite of a taxonomy, which is an up-front
categorization scheme developed by an expert" (McAfee, 2006). Hence, "folksonomies
rely on the similarities between the ways in which people describe disparate pieces of
information" (Tredinnick, 2006). "Web 2.0 is the interactive Web, where end users can
help define how they might categorize the data. This helped facilitate a change from the
traditional "taxonomy" to the more interactive "folksonomy", where common folks
helped drive the categorization of information in a more meaningful manner" (Bernal,
2009).

Academics, such as Paul Anderson (Anderson, 2007) used a similar tool in the
research of his report, CiteULike, a website that allows its users to add papers to their
personal library and automatically extracts the citation details. It recommends other
articles based on each user's library and fosters information sharing between users.

Particularly, a tag is a keyword that is added to a digital object (e.g. a website,
picture or video clip) to describe it, but not as part of a normal classification system"
(Anderson, 2007).

16


Eventually a new monitoring and
indexing tool for tags was born, the tag
clouds. Tag clouds "are groups of tags from a
number of different users of a tagging
service, which collates information about the
frequency with which particular tags are
used. This frequency information is often
displayed graphically as a "cloud" in which From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud

tags with higher frequency of use are
displayed in larger text" (Anderson, 2007).

Tagging is also associated to picture sharing websites, such as Flickr or
Photobucket, where users usually “tag” someone else’s picture to identify a person. By
using multiple tags on a picture, it is possible to see photos, not only chronologically but
sorted by the people who are in them, who posted them, their locations, the events
they record, etc. (Weinberger, 2005). Recent developments in tagging are related to
tagging video content, by embedding time stamps in a video and referring each mark to
however the author wants to describe that particular timing. An example of this is
"http://redlasso.com/".

2.1.2.5. RSS (Real Simple Syndication)

RSS (or Real Simple Syndication) is a "way of syndicating Web content through
the use of content feeds, that usually combine either a lead paragraph, or a summary of
an article published on the Web or on a blog, and have a hyperlink back to its source"
(Tredinnick, 2006).

"Bloggers use RSS to generate a short notice (i.e. headline) each time they add
new content. (...) That is also a link back to the full content. With RSS, users (...) simply
consult their aggregators, click on headlines of interest and are taken to the new
content" (McAfee, 2006) of "RSS-enabled websites, blogs or podcasts without actually

17


having to go and visit the site. Instead, information from the website is collected within a
feed and "piped" to the user in a process known as syndication" (Anderson, 2007). "To
subscribe to these information feeds (...) you need to download a content aggregator.
You can also customize your RSS to locate content that's appropriate to your needs"
(Macaskill and Owen, 2006) or, alternatively, subscribe to a website, such as Netvibes,
which "provides an interface to aggregated RSS content" (Mason, 2008).

According to Craig Mason (Mason, 2008) RSS "provides a structured and logical
process for distributing content without requiring users to literally engage with a
traditional centralized interface". An example of this would be to use RSS along with
tags, by requesting headlines that contain a collection of keywords, and return this
information as an RSS feed.

Another relevant aspect of RSS is that it "allows websites to constantly display
new updated content as it flows in from different sources across the Web automatically"
(Marshall, 2008), or by "aggregating from many different websites into a single user-
space" (Tredinnick, 2006).

For companies worried about opening up their systems to the internet under the
excuse that they would rather not waste work-time with site exploration, this tool is
particularly useful, since it "allows people and organizations to subscribe to external
content in XML format" (Scarff, 2006), and receive updated relevant information
through their browser or by e-mail.

2.1.2.6. Multimedia sharing

"Popular services take the idea of the "writeable" Web (where users are not just
consumers but contribute actively to the production of Web content) and enable it on a
massive scale (Youtube, Flickr and Odeo)" (Aderson, 2007).

Additionally, "BitTorrent, like other pioneers in the P2P (peer-to-peer) movement,
takes a radical approach to internet decentralization. Every client is also a server; files

18


are broken up into fragments that can be served from multiple locations, transparently
harnessing the network of downloaders to provide both bandwidth and data to other
users" (O'Reilly, 2005).

For businesses, this means having a file sharing system relying on their
employees to act as a fragmented data base; the more users exist, the faster the files
are shared among them. This also facilitates the geographical location of each person
within the same company.

2.1.2.7. Audio blogging and podcasting

"Podcast is simply making audio files available online so that users can then
download them to their desktop" (Macaskill and Owen, 2006). "Interviews and lectures
(...) can be played either on a desktop computer or on a handheld MP3 device. (...)
Podcast listeners subscribe to RSS feeds and receive information about new podcasts as
they become available" (Anderson, 2007). More recently, video files can also reside "on
a website and can be easily downloaded to a handheld device or personal computer"
(McGee, 2008).

This technology is not new and its application to a business environment is
mostly related to e-learning systems, where the users exploit a pre-bought application
or access a website and listen (and/or watch) the education material selected by their
management.

2.1.2.8. Video blogging

As bandwidth capacity increases and server space becomes available, users
became capable of uploading their own content to the Web. A clear success is the case
of You Tube. This website lets users upload, tag, watch, rate, review, and blog video
footage, and even creates playlists. You Tube is one of the fastest growing websites
today. One of its enhancements is letting content creators create and customize their
own broadcast channel (Macaskill and Owen, 2006). Similar to You Tube, users can

19


access Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/) an online community for video content creators to
share their videos among themselves and other users.

2.1.2.9. Mash-up

A mash-up is defined as "Web pages or applications that take data from more
than one (often unrelated) online source and combine it to create new hybrid services
unintended by the original content owners" (Macaskill and Owen, 2006), "to create a
unique view of interpretation" (McGee, 2008). A common example of a mash-up is the
use of Google maps to show business locations within a certain region. An example is
"The rentables" (http://www.therentables.com/), a website to locate houses for rent; it
works its platform under Google maps to show its users where the houses are located.

2.1.2.10. Social networking

Websites such as Facebook or MySpace allow users to set up interactive and
personalized Web profiles detailing personal information such as: education, age,
interests, and hobbies. Users are able to edit and customize their profile page, to display
friends, upload photographs, videos, music, create a blog, post comments on other user
profile pages, and send messages to other users (Macaskill and Owen, 2006).
Furthermore, websites like Linkedin take this personalization to the professional level,
where users can create their professional profiles that include their academic
background and corporate experience and where links are made available to past and
current co-workers and colleagues.

2.1.2.11. MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games)

Virtual worlds are understood as immersive, three-dimensional, multi-media,
multi-person simulation environments, where each participant adopts an alter ego and
interacts with other participants in real time (Wagner, 2008). There are well over a
hundred widely used virtual world applications available today, operating on several
different platforms (Wagner, 2008). Christian Wagner differentiates them in two groups:

20


purposeful and general purpose virtual worlds. Purposeful worlds are represented by
games such as “World of Warcraft” (or more recently, “Aion”), that require a user to
fulfill a set of quests (i.e. objectives) usually rising in difficulty and complexity. Most of
these objectives are meant to be played online in collaboration with several other users
(hence the acronym MMO). Although these objectives are apart from reality, the author
suggests that the learning experience can be very practical, “such as the impact on
altruistic behavior or the benefits of separation of duties and team work”.

On the other hand, through the use of general purpose virtual worlds, some
authors have suggested that the concept of virtual worlds could be applied to education
(Wagner, 2008; J. King, 2008). Brian King (J. King, 2008) suggests the creation of a
MMORPG dedicated to foster students learning about business in an engaging and
educational simulation game. His point is that current educational strategies do not
prepare graduates for the modern business world and they do not motivate students to
learn.

Another example being used in education (Wagner, 2008) is a virtual world
closely related to the concept of social networking sites called Second Life, “a
subscription based virtual world where registered users interact by building, playing,
working, and flying along side other virtual characters” (Mascaskill and Owen, 2006).
Here, people assume their own life in a game, or prefer to act as someone else in their
interactivity with others. Second Life currently has over 11.2 million registered avatars
and monthly growth rates are in excess of 20%. From a business resources perspective,
virtual worlds such as Second Life provide environments and tools that facilitate
creating online laboratories that can automatically recruit potentially thousands of
research subjects at a low cost (Chesney et al., 2007). Moreover, managers are starting
to realize that a great part of their young workforce are accustomed to playing online
games, and thus are more comfortable with new technological advancements (King,
2008).

21


2.1.2.12. Newer services and applications

"There is such a deluge of new services that it is often difficult to keep track of
what's "out there" or to make sense of what each provides" (Anderson, 2007). Anderson
suggests a way to categorize new services based on what they attempt to do. He
identified seven ways to categorize new services:

 Social networking: professional and social networking sites that facilitate meeting
people, finding like minds, sharing content;
 Aggregation services: information gathering from diverse sources across the Web
and publish in one place. Includes news and RSS feed aggregators and tools that
create a single webpage with all your feeds and email in one place. Collect and
aggregate user data, user "attention" and intentions;
 Data "mash-ups": Web services that pull together data from different sources to
create a new service (i.e. aggregation and recombination);
 Tracking and filtering content: services that keep track of, filter, analyze and allow
search of the growing amounts of Web 2.0 content from blogs, multimedia sharing
services, etc;
 Collaborating: collaborative reference works (like Wikipedia) that are built using
wiki-like software tools. Collaborative, Web-based project and work group
productivity tools;
 Replicate office-style software in the browser: Web-based desktop
application/document tools;
 Source ideas or work from the crowd: seek ideas, solutions to problems or get tasks
completed by outsourcing to users of the Web. Uses the idea of power of the crowd.

2.1.3. Technologies Supporting Web 2.0

Several new technologies and concepts supporting the Web 2.0 environment
have become widely noticed. The research conducted for this study revealed some of
the most important ones, namely: Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Simple Object Access

22


Protocol (SOAP), Microformats, Social software, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA),
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and AJAX.

"Web 2.0 is about improving the user interface and enabling end users to view
data quicker" by taking "advantage of the browser as the universal client and provide a
richer interactive experience" (Bernal, 2009). The browser thus becomes the main
platform of use for these new technologies. This is made possible with the use of "key
open standards, flexible, and ever changing technologies" (Marshall, 2008) such as AJAX,
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and APIs
(Application Programming Interfaces). These tools "significantly improved one element
of the Web that before was not as powerful: two-way communication and social
networking" (Marshall, 2008), empowering users to be active agents in creating, editing
and managing their own and others' content. Furthermore "there is less emphasis on the
software (as a package: licensed and distributed) and far more on an application
providing a service" (Anderson, 2007), hence the concept of Software as a Service
(SaaS). Most of the world of software is moving to the browser and SaaS – and therefore
to the Web and your local internet (Hinchcliffe (b), 2006).

2.1.3.1. AJAX

"Early Web browsing followed a very structured 3-stage pattern; click, load and
wait" (Mason, 2008). AJAX is a term first coined by Jesse James Garret (Garret, 2005)
and is used to describe a "set of technologies that allow browsers to provide users with a
more natural browsing experience" (Teare, 2005) "with the kind of responsive interfaces
that are commonly found in desktop applications" (Anderson, 2007).

"The key in AJAX is the term asynchronous, (...) a new paradigm for interacting
with the browser, with no need for full-page refreshes" (Bernal, 2009). Information
keeps being updated behind the scenes while the user can focus on something else on
the page. This "improves the dynamism of Web pages through individual techniques
such as Javascript, etc." (Anderson, 2007) and allows "(near) real-time updates of

23


individual elements on-screen" which "brings the user closer to the content provider or
receiver" (Mason, 2008).

Some authors find problems with the safety measurements around the use of
AJAX. Jordan Wiens (Wiens, 2007) states that AJAX "leaves users vulnerable to cross-site
request forgery attacks". As a result, without an update on an AJAX application, it is
possible that someone or something else can act on its own, pretending to be the user.

2.1.3.2. Rich Internet Applications (RIA)

"Browser technology has moved on to a new stage in its development with the
introduction of what are known as RIAs" (Anderson, 2007). A RIA "is a type of Web
application that can run independently of browsers, can run on any operating system
and, in many ways, works like a traditional desktop application" (Rapoza, 2008). The
most common RIA platform is the Flash plug-in, found in 99% of all computers in the
world" (Hinchcliffe, 2005).

The appearance of RIA is not without some controversy. According to Dion
Hinchcliffe (2005), "while the technique getting the most press by far these days is still
AJAX, there are a number of new approaches that are intent on dislocating this (...)
browser software model. The new upcoming RIAs are not only easy, but far more cost-
effective and with features that AJAX might never be able to match (Hinchcliffe, 2005).
However, Hinchcliffe (2005) agrees that many of these new application models are
breaking the model of the Web that requires the use of add-ons to the browser, and
thus these new applications have, according to him "considerably less ability to trigger
network effects". For this researcher "the right combination of features is still being
sought" for the perfect RIA.

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2.1.3.3. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

According to Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz (Rotem-Gal-Oz, 2007), looking beyond the
hype and misconceptions related to SOA, this technology can be examined from two
main points of view, from a business perspective and a technical one.

From a business point of view, SOA analyzes a business to indentify its discrete
areas of interest and its business processes in order to suggest services for these areas
through message interfaces. The services can be choreographed or orchestrated to
realize the business processes. The goal of SOA is to increase the alignment between
business and IT and achieve business agility – the ability to respond to changes quickly
and efficiently (Rotem-Gal-Oz, 2007).

From a technical perspective, SOA is commonly thought of as architecture or an
architectural style that builds on loosely coupled, interoperable and compositional
components of software agents called services. Services have well-defined interfaces
based on standard protocols as well as policies that govern how these interfaces can be
used by service customers (Rotem-Gal-Oz, 2007; Anderson, 2007).

Web services for simple functions and tasks are being developed and integrated
together in the form of SOAs to provide advanced functions to the users. The increasing
use of SOA, interoperable Web services, and public APIs has helped the communication
between applications to applications, in a loosely coupled way (Chan et al., 2007).

2.1.3.4. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

At the foundation of Web 2.0 technologies are APIs. An API is "a system whereby
third party applications can query, display and even update content of other websites
autonomously" (Mason, 2008). In the Web 2.0 context, "an open API doesn't require the
programmer to license or pay royalties. Such "open" APIs have helped Web 2.0 services
develop rapidly and have facilitated the creation of mash-ups of data from various
sources" (Anderson, 2007). Nevertheless, although APIs and other similar tools "are

25


appearing fairly steadily (...) capable tools for creating new mashups still seem lacking.
(...)The advantage of in-browser mashups is the complete portability and mobility they
offer (Hinchcliffe, 2006).

2.1.3.5. Microformats

Microformats are widely used by Web developers to embed semi-structured
semantic information (i.e. some level of “meaning”) with an XHTML webpage (Khare et
al., 2006). Microformats allow bloggers or website owners to embed information that
services and applications can make use of without the need to visit the application’s
website and add the data (Anderson, 2007).

2.1.3.6. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is an XML-based protocol that defines a
framework for passing messages between systems over the internet (Loshin, 2000). In
other words, SOAP is a protocol (hence, containing several instructions) to facilitate
communication between programs over http – another protocol that is supported by all
internet browsers and servers and is thus readable in any computer. Therefore, SOAP
makes use of current widely available standards (for internet browsers) to facilitate
communication between programs.

Similar to SOAP, Representational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural idea
and set of principles that uses the Web and which provides a simple communications
interface using XML and http. According to Anderson the difference between them is
that the use of SOAP is heavyweight and REST is lightweight (Anderson, 2007).

2.2. Business Intelligence

In 1958, Hans Peter Luhn gave birth to the term Business Intelligence (BI) in his
article "A Business Intelligence System". For him, intelligence represents "the ability to
apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a way as to guide action
towards a desired goal" and in order to make that happen, he suggests that "an

26


automatic system is needed which can accept information in its original form,
disseminate the data promptly to the proper places and furnish information on
demand". In this sense, he fashioned the Business Intelligence System, which can be
represented by "data processing machines" that working "together with proper
communication facilities and input-output equipment" allow the accommodation of "all
information problems of an organization" (Luhn, 1958).

Later on, BI became a popularized umbrella term coined and promoted by
Howard Dresner of the Gartner Group in 1989 (Power, 2007). At the time, Dresner "was
seeking a term that would elevate the debate and better define the analysis of
quantitative information by a wide variety of users (Martens, 2006). In a more recent
interview for Computer World, Dresner states that despite the fact that BI might have
evolved differently from what he expected "it's all about ways to deliver information to
end users without needing them to be experts in operational research" (Martens, 2006).

Indeed, today "the integration of (...) information systems architecture, human
resources, and selection and use of information is still not enough". BI is about "putting
together human resources that collaborate and share knowledge with a good
information technology system that distributes useful information, enabling the
generation of individual and group capacities" (Rodrigues, 2002).

2.2.1. Business (Intelligence)

The evaluation of the applicability of business intelligence in a business context
can be addressed by answering three questions: Why is it important? To whom is it
being targeted? How is it being used?

2.2.1.1. Why BI?

"With the help of BI, companies learn to anticipate the actions of their customers
and competitors as well as different phenomena and trends of their market areas and
fields of activity. Companies then use the information and knowledge generated to
support their operative and strategic decision-making" (Hannula, 2003). Additionally,

27


"When effectively integrated into processes, BI can help an organization meet many
mission-critical goals" (Felix, 2009). These decisions may eventually lead to compulsory
adjustments within the company. According to Richard Hackathorn, "information can
only benefit the business when some action changes the course of some business
process" and to have value, it "must improve your products, enhance interactions with
customers or have similar impacts" (Hackathorn, 2001).

Alternatively, BI deployment may be triggered because management requires
the translation of the company's strategy into a "detailed set of indicators that are closer
to the operational tasks" that allow employees to better understand a company's needs
(Golfarelli, 2004). The need to accommodate data into simpler indicators can be
explained by the rise of available data. In effect, "according to Gartner Group, by 2012,
global companies will have to handle 30 times more data than they do in 2004" and for
this reason, control over key data is becoming a key success factor for businesses
(O'Connell, 2004).

Lastly, "High on the list of factors feeding the burgeoning growth rate of BI is an
increasingly regulatory environment for businesses. Government regulations, primarily in
the form of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US and the Combined Code on Corporate
Governance in the UK, are fueling the drive to make companies more honest and open
with their corporate information and in their external reporting" (O'Connell, 2004).

In a nutshell, individuals and businesses invest in BI systems because they want
to achieve corporate goals, they need a better grasp on the universe of data available in
the market, or because they feel the necessity of adapting to marketplace changes.

2.2.1.2. Who uses BI?

Several authors state that the key to improving the quality and timeliness of
information is to implement a holistic, user-centered analytical framework that is
designed to enhance decision-making across the entire value chain and at all levels of
the organization - staff-level workers and executive decision-makers (O'Connell, 2004;

28


Foody, 2009). "At senior managerial levels, it is the input to strategic and tactical
decisions. At lower managerial levels, it helps individuals to do their day-to-day job"
(Negash et al., 2003).

In fact, research estimates that "an increasing number of firms will target more
of their budgets toward technology initiatives that deliver information to line- and staff-
level workers and less for strategic decision making" (O'Connell, 2004).

Patrick Foody makes an important point when he states that "analysts need
applications that are user-driven, not application-driven" (Foody, 2009). The concept of
the "business power user", introduced by Rick Sherman, reflects the veracity of this
statement, since it refers to the business employee as a user that is comfortable with
technology, enjoys using cool tools and is savvy about IT processes (Sherman, 2009). In
this sense, "the BI industry needs to turn its approach inside out and start with the user
than being bound by what the technology can do" (Foody, 2009).

"In next-generation companies, however, innovation is pushed beyond the
boundaries of the company. Customers, suppliers and strategic partners are all involved
in making the company an innovative leader" (Rodrigues, 2002).

2.2.1.3. How is BI being used?

"Companies should not expect a full-scale implementation from the start, as this
may be counterproductive" (Thompson, 2009).

The third subject tackles a recommended process with which companies can
follow to implement a Business Intelligence system.

The first step is to define information sources. Companies consider their own
personnel as their most important source of information. As for external sources, they
frequently use customers, market research institutes and competitors (Hannula, 2003).

Knowing the fonts of information allow a business to deploy its BI gathering
strategy. Richard Hackathorn suggests an approach to evaluate BI that incorporates the

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following steps: observation (looking inside the business); understanding (the dynamics
of the business); predicting (the future state of key business variables); reacting
(executing a course of action); and reorganization (improving business processes by
refining best practices) (Hackathorn, 2001).

Finally, companies may recruit internal power users to persuade other
colleagues to embrace and adopt new BI tools. "Because the power user is typically
involved from the earliest stage of the project, he or she will likely become the most
ardent advocate for the new system" (Sherman, 2009).

Providing managers and staff with accurate, intuitive, and easily interpretable
data is one-third of the recipe for improvement. However, information is only as strong
as how it is interpreted, and data brings two problems to the table: interpretation itself
is subjective and people may only see from one point-of-view; and then, too much focus
on small bits of information may deter one from seeing the bigger picture and thus
focusing attention on too narrow BI system outcomes can bring disaster. For these
reasons it is imperative, beyond providing employees with "accurate, intuitive, and
easily interpretable data", to assure the alignment with strategic objectives and a
system for accountability (Wadsworth et al., 2009).

2.2.2. Concepts and definitions

BI is generally knowledge, "typically obtained about customer needs, customer
decision-making process, the competition, conditions in the industry, and general
economic, technological, and cultural trends. BI was born within the industrial world in
the early 90's to satisfy the managers' request for efficiently and effectively analyzing
the enterprise data in order to better understand the situation of their business and
improving the decision process" (Golfarelli, 2004).

Nevertheless, "current literature on BI has proved to be fairly sketchy and
theoretical" since "there is no generally agreed conception of BI but, rather, each author
has promoted his or her own idea of its connotations" (Hannula, 2003).

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Defining BI can be classified under different categories: as a system to support
decision making (Negash et al., 2003, Power, 2005, Rouibah et al., 2002, Canes, 2009,
Felix, 2009), as a set of technologies (Power, 2005, Foody, 2009), as a systematic
approach to search data and information (Hannula, 2003, Cody et al., 2002) or, for some
authors, as a illustration of all categories before mentioned (Adelman et al., 2002,
Negash et al., 2003).

2.2.2.1. BI as a support for decision-making

Behind the idea of BI as a support for decision-making is Solomon Negash and
Paul Gray, who assert that BI is "a natural outgrowth of a series of previous systems
designed to support decision making" (Negash et al, 2003), and as "a set of concepts and
methods to improve business decision making by using fact-based support systems"
(Power, 2005). Moreover, BI can be viewed as "a strategic approach for systematically
targeting, tracking, communicating and transforming relevant weak signs into
actionable information on which strategic decision-making is based". In other words, BI
is "a systematic approach by which a company keeps itself vigilant and aware of
developments and early warning signs in its external environment in order to anticipate
business opportunities or threats" (Rouibah et al., 2002). More recently, the focus on
knowledge gathering has shifted from outside the organization to the inside. Thus, BI is
defined today as "the ability to extract actionable insight from data available to the
organization, both internal and external, for the purposes of supporting decision-making
and improving corporate performance" (Canes, 2009), and more importantly, "to
improve information and enable employees to take action" (Felix, 2009).

2.2.2.2. BI as a technology

To refer to BI as a technology is to say that it is "a term that some financial
analysts and commentators use for categorizing a small group of software vendors and
their products" (Power, 2005). Additionally, "BI is often described as a technology that

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helps users visualize their business. It must be easy to understand, simple to use, and
relatively intuitive" (Foody, 2009).

John K. Thompson explores the idea of BI being delivered via Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS): "BI SaaS goes much further, allowing companies to outsource the analysis
of multiple terabytes of information as part of an overall business intelligence strategy".
The motivation behind this new solution is that "BI SaaS enables firms to implement
data analytics initiatives in a fraction of the time and capital expenditure required by
traditional installations" (Thompson, 2009).

2.2.2.3. BI as a systematic approach to information and data finding

BI, as a systematic approach to information and data finding, is "defined as
organized and systematic processes, which are used to acquire, analyze and disseminate
information significant to business activities" (Hannula, 2003). This information has its
origin in databases. "Business intelligence has applied the functionality, scalability, and
reliability of modern database management systems to build ever-larger data
warehouses, and to utilize data mining techniques to extract business advantage from
the vast amount of available enterprise data" (Cody et al., 2002).

Data warehousing is "a systematic approach to collecting relevant business data
into a single repository, where it is organized and validated so that it can be analyzed
and presented in a form that is useful for business decision-making" (Cody et al., 2002).

2.2.2.4. BI in general terms

In more general terms, BI "combines data gathering, data storage, and
knowledge management with analytical tools to present complex and competitive
information to planners and decision makers" (Negash et al., 2003).

Business Intelligence normally describes the result of in-depth analysis of
detailed business data. It includes database and application technologies, as well as
analysis practices. BI is sometimes used synonymously with "decision support", though

32


business intelligence is technically much broader, potentially encompassing knowledge
management, enterprise resource planning, and data mining, among other practices
(Adelman et al., 2002).

2.2.2.5. Competitive Intelligence (CI)

Related to the concept of BI is Competitive Intelligence (CI). CI can be defined as
"a systematic and ethical program for gathering, analyzing and managing external
information that can affect your company's plans, decisions and operations" (Negash et
al., 2003). CI can also provide information about the present and future behavior of
competitors, suppliers, customers, technologies, acquisitions, markets, and the general
business environment (Vedder et al., 2002).

The purpose of CI is to gather actionable information about competitors and,
ideally, apply it to a business' short and long term strategic planning. CI can be simple –
scanning a company’s annual report and other public documents – or more elaborate –
hiring a security specialist to penetrate a competitor’s defenses (Ettorre, 1995).

For the purposes of this dissertation the analysis of BI presented here is
sufficient to understanding the general applications of what is meant by the term
Competitive Intelligence.

2.2.3. Purpose of BI

"Business intelligence is used to understand: the capabilities available in the firm;
the state of the art, trends, and future directions in the markets, the technologies, and
the regulatory environment in which the firm competes; and the actions of competitors
and the implications of these actions" (Negash et al., 2003).

Despite the several views about the meaning of BI, there appears to be a certain
agreement towards its purpose. Solomon Negash and Paul Gray (Negash et al., 2003)
present the following statement which generally describes BI's purpose:

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"Business intelligence systems provide actionable information delivered at the
right time, at the right location, and in the right form to assist decision makers" (Negash
et al., 2003).

Time, in reference to BI, is related to "shrinking the information time window so
that the intelligence is still useful to the decision maker when the decision time comes"
(Negash et al., 2003), which means seeking to shorten the time between data gathering
and information clearance to decision makers. Additionally, because BI systems "present
complex corporate and competitive information", there is a need "to improve the
timeliness and quality of the input to the decision process" (Negash et al., 2003). Overall,
several other authors support that information must be promptly available to decision-
makers (Hannula, 2003, Luhn, 1958, Foody, 2009).

Location refers to the destiny of the information, and it can assume many forms.
For instance, Hans Peter Luhn (Luhn, 1958) states that "the objective of the system is to
supply suitable information to support specific activities carried out by individuals,
groups, departments, divisions, or even larger units. The admission or acquisition of new
information, its dissemination, storage retrieval and transmittal to the action points it
serves". Another author assumes that the "purpose of BI is to gather and provide
information to help managers make more "intelligent" decisions" (Power, 2005). "For
most companies the driving force behind starting BI activities has been a need to obtain
knowledge about the business environment and its development to support operative
actions" (Hannula, 2003). In the end, the place for information to be is near the decision
maker, whether he or she is at the top or bottom-level of the organization.

Form is an important trait of BI, that is, how information is presented to
decision-makers. Nevertheless, "many BI professionals believe that the BI job is finished
when the right information is delivered to the right person at the right time"
(Hackathorn, 2001). Although a "Business Intelligence System provides means for
selective dissemination to each of its action points in accordance with their current

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requirements or desires" (Luhn, 1958), sometimes "the technology (...) interferes and
confuses rather than helps the user" (Foody, 2009).

2.2.4. Advantages of BI

"As the cost dropped, the number of users seeking to take advantage of a BI/DW
implementation grew" (Thompson, 2009). Costs in this area are still too high for
companies to benefit. Many analysts judge that BI solutions are out of reach for small
and medium companies who can't afford them (Negash et al., 2003; Thompson, 2009;
Canes, 2009; Wagsworth, 2009).

However, for those who can afford it, BI can bring several advantages, among
which are the following:
 Gaining insight from data that improves decision-making and risk mitigation (Canes,
2009);
 Deploying analytic databases and software across multiple locations (Thompson,
2009);
 Providing the analytical edge that sustains innovative programs for success over the
long term (Felix, 2009);
 Sparking creative adaption designed to counter issues that could show down
ongoing campaigns (Felix, 2009).

According to the empirical study conducted by Dr. Mika Hannula (Hannula, 2003)
on the top 50 Finnish Companies, the following benefits of BI were rated as important:
 Harmonizing the ways of thinking of company personnel;
 Broadening understanding of business in general;
 Strengthening strategic planning;
 Increasing professionalism in acquisition and analysis of information;
 Understanding the meaning of information.

Even though several benefits can be found to support BI practice within an
entrepreneurial context, the truth is that "most BI benefits are soft" (Negash et al.,

35


2003), as they often have "constraints that (...) seem to prevent them from taking
advantage of analytics" (Thompson, 2009). For this reason, John K. Thompson
(Thompson, 2009) states some advantages of using BI through Software as a Service
(SaaS), as an alternative to current solutions:
 Value-based proofs-of-concept can be created in a matter of days;
 Attractive to midsize companies as well as departments and divisions of large
corporations that seek to implement cost-effective, quick, and dynamic data
analytics projects;
 Costs are reduced, performance is guaranteed, and full business insight is enjoyed;
 The client may specify a service-level agreement.

2.2.5. Potential drawbacks and risks of BI

"Traditionally, data warehousing and analytic implementations cost too much"
(Thompson, 2009). One of the major drawbacks of BI is the difficulty in determining its
return on investment (ROI). This is mainly driven by BI's high up-front and upkeep costs
(Negash et al., 2003; Thompson, 2009; Canes, 2009; Wadsworth et al., 2009).
"Unfortunately, although reductions in information systems cost from efficiencies (e.g.
time saved in creating and distributing reports, operating efficiencies, ability to retain
customers) can be forecast, the IT savings are only a small portion of the payoff. It would
be rare for a BI system to pay for itself through cost reductions" (Negash et al., 2003).
"Too many firms have concluded that the level of work required to implement a
traditional data warehouse and make it a success will not produce the required return on
investment" (Thompson, 2009).

Furthermore, even though "costs of deployment (...) still continue to be the most
obvious limiting factor", some "companies must still move existing data into the new
systems themselves". In other cases "IT professionals, already strained to the hilt, are
loath to assume greater responsibilities, especially projects that often deliver benefits
only to a particular department instead of the entire enterprise". One the other hand, in
some cases "Dedicated data warehouse for individual departments may be overkill"

36


(Thompson, 2009). However, whenever a company wants to shift to a less expensive BI
solution, it has to face what John K. Thompson (Thompson, 2009) calls an "unwanted
trade-off: lower technology costs were being replaced by the higher costs the IT staff
needed to maintain a system, along with the cost of frequent technology updates".

"Tapping the power of business intelligence is not simple, and the investment in
personnel and infrastructure can be significant" (Wadsworth et al., 2009). Besides
implementation costs, "putting a BI system in place includes: hardware costs, software
costs (...) and personnel costs" (Negash et al., 2003; Canes, 2009). Other typical barriers
to the deployment of BI systems are their complexity, and associated time and effort
spent by people to support those same systems (Canes, 2009).

The cost of workforce time and effort with the deployment and exploitation of
such systems cannot easily be estimated and its benefits are in some cases doubtful.
Actually, "Business analysts are drowning in a sea of data but unable to obtain the
knowledge they need to address the more difficult business problems" (Foody, 2009) and
"The sheer mass of the possibly relevant content can make analysis a daunting task"
(Felix, 2009). Analysts thus continue to sustain negative judgments about BI. On one
hand, "traditional business intelligence tools (...) appear to offer little insight" (Foody,
2009). On the other hand, the offered tools "require complex queries that can be written
only by experts, and information is often delivered several days or weeks after it was first
requested" (Foody, 2009; Thompson, 2009).

Another limiting factor related to BI systems is their inability to account for
knowledge gained from experience, i.e. tacit knowledge, in contrast to explicit
knowledge, "the one incorporated in manuals, handbooks, databases and procedures".
"Up to recently, companies have overlooked the first one (tacit) and emphasized the
latter one (explicit)" (Rodrigues, 2002).

"Business Intelligence terms and practices in companies have not yet become
very well established. Most firms think of BI activities as a process focusing on
monitoring the competitive environment around them" (Hannula, 2003).

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Lastly, another problem identified with BI implementation is expectations.
"When evaluating a BI project's benefits you risk setting user expectations too high"
which given the problems abovementioned, "the tools to be used for client-based
analytics and reporting may not be what users expect" (Thompson, 2009).

2.2.6. BI tools

Business Intelligence software extends from software sold for querying a
database and creating a report (Power, 2005), to complex and expensive BI services. BI
platforms in 2001 were a $5.5 billion market. By the end of 2010, business intelligence
services are estimated to amount to at least $15 billion annually (Power, 2001).

Today, companies and managers are beginning to ask IT vendors for new
development tools capable of handling the changed business scenario. On the
technological side, companies are seeking to outsource information systems to cut fixed
costs. On the organizational side, in order to reduce costs they are adopting an end-to-
end strategy that involves both customers and suppliers to synchronize all business
activities (Golfarelli, 2004).

In their study to classify Business Intelligence in healthcare organizations, Ton Spil,
Robert Sterwee and Christian Teitink used a functional classification of BI tools that
utilized criteria based on the work of Alter (1977) (Spil et al., 2002):

 Data oriented tools: may require the end-user to have knowledge of both the
relational structure of the databases and tables and SQL language.
o File drawer systems: in most cases queries are made by specialists. End-
users use these queries by defining variables;
o Database query tools: give more possibilities to the end-user in asking
questions at the database management system (the database).

 Decision oriented tools: decision support tools (DSS) allow end-users to turn data
into information.

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o Spreadsheets: mainly provide functionalities in the area of reports and
statistical operations;
o Online Analytical Processing (OLAP): category of software technology that
enables employees to gain insight into data through fast, consistent,
interactive access to a wide variety of possible views of information that
has been transformed from raw data to reflect the real dimensionality of
the enterprise as understood by the user.

 Model oriented tools: data mining is the search for characteristic patterns or
regularity in the database:
o Neural networks: network architectures that "learn" how problems have
to be solved;
o Induction: extraction of information by generalizing from within the
database;
o Statistics: the end-user himself describes the model, which the computer
uses to analyze the data;
o Visualization: the analysis will be performed by the end-user himself,
behind the screen.

In this chapter it was possible to grasp how Web 2.0 tools are seen and what
contributions they can make towards information organization. Similarly for BI, what
impact it has made on corporate information gathering and what are the major
drawbacks BI systems have been facing. The next chapter involves building a framework
model of Web 2.0 principles, which supports the discussion on how they can help
improve BI systems.

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III. Model development

As stated in the introduction, the main purpose of this dissertation is to
understand whether or not and how Web 2.0 tools can improve BI gathering and assess
how they can assist organizations to apply this intelligence throughout any company’s
hierarchy. Considering the research collected on what defines Web 2.0 and BI, this
chapter aims to present a resultant framework model, created with the intention to
aggregate the main principles that surround Web 2.0 tools according to the authors that
have formulated clear ideas about them. The purpose of this model is to provide the
reader with an understandable, solid and well-founded insight on how Web 2.0 can
support BI.

3.1. Procedure conducted

The model used to assess the research question is based on three types of data:

 A foundation that represents the key principles of Web 2.0 - based on by the work
developed by Tim O'Reilly, Paul Anderson and John Musser;
 An accessory foundation that evaluates Web 2.0 according to criteria different from
the base foundation - formulated in the work developed by other theorists and
researchers;
 A set of supporting theories, which aim to explain the details behind each Web 2.0
tool analyzed - based on descriptions by specialists of each tool.

The tools considered for analysis are those already identified and scrutinized in
the literature review and are subject to an analysis of their appropriateness to BI based
on their characteristics, advantages and potential drawbacks. These tools are blogs,
micro blogs, wikis, tags, RSS, multimedia sharing, audio blogging, video blogging, mash-
ups, social networking, MMORPGs and others.

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The following table represents the guiding principles applied in this dissertation's model
development:

Web 2.0 tools
Supporting theories T1 T2 T3 T4
Supporting the
informational content T5 T6 T7 T8 Accessory foundation
for each Web 2.0 tool. Evaluating Web 2.0
T9 T10 T11 T12 tools according to other
criteria.

Foundation
Defining the rules by
Tx Tool “x” which Web 2.0 tools
should abide.

3.2. Assessing Business Intelligence as a measurable concept

In order to analyze the impact of Web 2.0 on BI gathering it is necessary to
identify BI features upon which to test Web 2.0 principles. This segment aims to explain
the process followed to do so.

According to the state-of-the-art, BI can assume many roles in and present
several opportunities for a company, but also presents many potential drawbacks and
risks. To assess BI as a measurable concept, the parameters subject to investigation
consist of the characteristics that define BI, the advantages of BI offerings and the
potential drawbacks and risks associated found in the supporting literature.

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On one hand, Web 2.0 principles are tested to see the degree of compliance
towards BI basic characteristics. These have been taken from the literature review
conducted for BI and briefly summarized in the table below:

BI as a support for decision making
The set of tools and capabilities that allow a company to extract insight from internal
and external sources of data, track that data, and spread the insight throughout the
company to support decision-making and improve performance.
BI as a technology
The group of software vendors and their offering of easy to understand, simple and
intuitive tools that help a company's personnel to understand their business.
BI as a systematic approach to information and data finding
The systematic activities of collecting business data, storing it in data warehouses
and, through the use of data mining techniques so as to extract valuable information
for the company.

Additionally, the second set of parameters corresponds to the advantages
offered by BI to evaluate how well Web 2.0 can keep with current BI offerings. Likewise,
the problems of BI represent parameters (or challenges) for Web 2.0 principles to
overcome.

Advantages to accomplish Challenges to overcome
 Easiness of data acquisition and  High cost;
analysis;  Low return on investment and
 Accessibility to information; low savings;
 Capability to foster creativity;  Time and effort consuming;
 Provision of business insight;  Local beneficiaries only;
 Contribution to strategic planning;  Overwhelming information
 Capability of Customization. output;
 Lack of tacit knowledge
representation;
 Poor user experience.

These BI parameters are henceforth used to indicate whether a Web 2.0 benefit
contributes to BI improvement and, if it does, what methods or tools are available to
fulfill that request.

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3.3. Building the new framework for Web 2.0

Current literature discloses two ways to approach the utilization of Web 2.0.
Essentially, authors either suggest how companies should adjust new Web 2.0 tools to
procedures performed inside a company's firewall, while others, such as Tim O'Reilly,
emphasize specifically how to make use of Web 2.0 tools to build better client
relationships.

In 2005, Tim O'Reilly published an article that aimed to clarify what Web 2.0
meant. His purpose was to demystify which startups truly belonged to Web 2.0. He
presented seven ideas behind the success stories of Web 1.0 and its most interesting
applications which, according to him, represent the core competencies of Web 2.0
companies.

Similarly, Paul Anderson (Anderson, 2007) developed six "big" ideas based on the
concepts originally outlined by Tim O'Reilly. In his paper, he tried to explain Web 2.0 as
more than just a global information space, but instead "something with much more of a
social angle to it". His focus was mainly on collaboration, contribution and community.

Lastly, John Musser (Musser, 2007) presented a set of eight underlying patterns
that, according to him, are essential to success in Web 2.0.

An extended list of authors from different backgrounds and suggesting different
approaches to Web 2.0 would provide a more complete foundation to build this
framework model. However, the list of chosen authors for this research provides
enough positive evidence to answer the research question.

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The foundation of this study summarizes and extrapolates utilizations for BI
gathering from the essential knowledge obtained from the frameworks of ideas
presented by each of the abovementioned authors. As a result of their developments,
the foundation is a new diagram of Web 2.0 principles, presented below:

Web 2.0 Framework O’Reilly, 2005 Anderson, 2007 Musser, 2007

Contribution to data Data is the next “Intel Data is the next “Intel
Data on an epic scale
generation Inside” Inside”

Harnessing the power
Openness to collective Harnessing collective of the crowd Harnessing collective
intelligence intelligence intelligence

Network effects and the
long tail Leveraging the long tail
Ability to use as a
The web as a platform
platform
Innovation in assembly

Technological Lightwieght Programming models
Openness
accessibility programming models and scalability

End of the software Architecture of
Openness to user Rich user experiences
release cycle participation
contribution and
experience Individual production
Rich user experiences Perpetual beta
and user gen. content

Software above the Software above the
Portability promotion level of a single device n.a. level of a single device

The parameters in the left column of the diagram represent the Web 2.0
principles and each results from the identification of common traits among each
author's characterizations of Web 2.0. For instance, the Web 2.0 principle of
"contribution to data generation" results from the authors' developments on "Data is
the next Intel inside" (O'Reilly, 2005; Musser, 2007) and "Data on an epic scale"
(Anderson, 2007). Using a thorough cross-analysis it was possible to clearly identify
common traits among the characteristics of Web 2.0 presented by different authors.

The resulting principles are used to define the structure of this research and,
along with other relevant details from the reviewed literature, this diagram systematizes
the ways in which Web 2.0 can contribute to BI improvement.

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In order to successfully analyze both new Web 2.0 and BI, the following sections
are organized according to the principles of Web 2.0 presented in the diagram
abovementioned. In each section, key author findings are summarily explored bearing in
mind the information gathered from the foundation, accessory foundation and
supporting theories.

3.3.1. Contribution to data generation

Database management is a core competency of Web 2.0 companies and every
significant internet application to date has been backed by a specialized database, such
as Google's Web crawl and Amazon's database of products (O'Reilly, 2005). Part of the
reason why data is of such importance in Web 2.0 is because it is seen as a resource that
can be repurposed, reformatted and reused through techniques like open APIs and
mashups (Miller, 2005). Hence, as the market shifted away from desktop to a model of
shared online services, it became increasingly less about function (i.e. how the service is
provided) alone, and more about data control (i.e. richness of the service). The latter
became the new source of competitive advantage, which therefore required companies
to set data and product strategies (Musser, 2007).

Data can have several classes (location, identity, calendaring of public events,
product identifiers, namespaces, etc.) and many origins. Where there is a significant cost
to create the data, there may be an opportunity for what O'Reilly calls an "intel inside"
style play, in which the entity holding data may become a specialized and reliable
supplier for that data. Alternatively, success may come from the data holding entity that
aggregates the most users/clients (O'Reilly, 2005).

An example of Web 2.0 data generation success is the case of Google. According
to Paul Anderson, companies like Google have database management and networking
as core competencies and have developed the ability to collect and manage this data on
an epic scale. Google now has a total database measured in hundreds of petabytes,
which is swelled each day by terabytes of new information (Anderson, 2007). This is the

45


result of what the author calls "network effect". Data is collected
indirectly from users and aggregated as a side effect of the
ordinary use of major Internet services and applications
(Anderson, 2006), which means that the more people use them,
the more valuable they become.

Another example of Web 2.0 capabilities can be found in
Google Maps, which provides a living laboratory for the
competition between application vendors and their data suppliers.
Google's lightweight programming model has led to the creation
of numerous value-added services in the form of mashups that link
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org
Google Maps with other internet-accessible data sources (O'Reilly,
/wiki/Network_effect
2005), which presents a new way to make data provide new and
useful insight.

The important aspects of Web 2.0's contribution to data generation are:
 The technological advancements of online data base solutions for storing data
facilitates current companies' data management;
 Controlling data and making use of APIs and mashups to provide customizable
information to users makes data become more accessible to users;
 The network effect allows data providers to collect and aggregate data indirectly
from users usage of internet services and applications, delivering more accurate and
tacit data to users.

3.3.2. Openness to collective intelligence

Openness to collective intelligence describes a quality of Web 2.0 that allows
users to configure content in ways that seem most logical and easily manipulated by
them. In order to clearly differentiate this capability from the openness to user
contribution and experience, the former results from an intention of the user to change
the way in which content is presented, while the latter represents an information layout

46


that unconsciously results from the usage that users make of a certain system. The
former does not account for tacit knowledge, while the latter attempts to do so.

Web 2.0 software is "inherently designed to harness collective intelligence
through an architecture of participation" (Anderson, 2007). Ergo, the barrier of product
adoption is being minimized because users contribute for product design and growth,
becoming "the engine of better products, rapid growth, and new markets" (Anderson,
2007). Since the value of the service increases as more people start to use it (Klemperer,
2006), the network effects generated from users contributions (in blogs, wikis, etc.)
deepens (Anderson, 2007) and plays a key role (O'Reilly, 2005). This is supported by
what Paul Anderson refers to as "the wisdom of crowds", to demonstrate that some
problems can be solved more effectively by groups operating according to specific
conditions, than by the most intelligent individual member of that group (Anderson,
2007).

Similarly, a practice called crowdsourcing is becoming increasingly popular in the
Web 2.0 environment. This term was first coined in 2006 by Jeff Howe (Howe, 2006) to
refer to the process of Web-based outsourcing for the procurement of media content,
small tasks, even solutions to scientific problems from the crowd gathered on the
internet (Anderson, 2007). This reveals that users rely on the power of the intelligence
present online to find solutions to their problems.

There are several examples in the literature worth mention as they clarify the
potential of Web 2.0 tools for collective intelligence:

 Hyperlinking: as users produce new content and add new sites, the structure of the
Web is altered and manipulated by other users discovering that content and linking
to it (O'Reilly, 2005). Linking page generally facilitates knowledge sharing of subjects
that share common traits. The more links to a page the easier it gets to access it;

 RSS allows users to be notified of several kinds of information (such as blog entries,
stock quotes updates, weather data, photo availability, etc.) via Web which has been

47


previously selected by them (O'Reilly, 2005). RSS acts as an information filter for
content distribution that can be either customized by the user or, in some cases, by
the department responsible for sharing information to employees in a company;

 Blogging is Web 2.0's best example of openness to collective intelligence. The
blogosphere is powerful because of its ability to direct the user to pages that he
might find useful. Because the blogging community is said to be highly self-
referential, if bloggers pay attention to other bloggers that magnifies their visibility
and power (O'Reilly, 2005).

 Similar to blogging, Wikis also contribute to harness collective intelligence given
their capability to manage input from several different users at the same time.

 The use of folksonomies also reflects the power of the community (Anderson, 2007)
since they are the result of people using their own vocabulary in order to add explicit
meaning to information. Similar to hyperlinking, folksonomies allows the user to
associate name tags to his content that facilitate other users finding it.

It is useful to notice that the openness to collective intelligence promoted by
Web 2.0 not only engages users to become more participative in building the service
itself, but also allows them access to new insights as more and more users contribute to
the service. Harnessing collective intelligence is creating an architecture of participation
that allows users to add value to an application either directly through active
participation or indirectly as a side-effect of their actions (Musser, 2007), which thus
gives rise to the network effect (Anderson, 2007). Several Web 2.0 tools are molding
how information is generated and how it is delivered to the user. The ways of
information spreading are no longer restrict to the dominant traditional media nor to
information specialists, but free for everyone with enough interest to publish.

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3.3.3. Ability to use as a platform

Thanks to the evolution from the static Web to today's dynamism of websites,
the Web is becoming a platform with enough potential to replace desktop operating
systems. This is mainly due to the recent shift from proprietary control to open
standards (Musser, 2007) that facilitate the use of technologies such as AJAX to turn
Web applications to feel more like traditional desktop applications. Since "the value of
the software is proportional to the scale and dynamism of the data it helps to
manage"(O'Reilly, 2005), it is safe to assume that the Web-as-a-platform is becoming
more valuable than desktop operating systems.

Today's competition lies between these platforms. On one side, single software
providers (e.g. Windows) whose massive installed base and tightly integrated system
and APIs give control over the programming paradigm. On the other side, a system
without an owner (e.g. Internet), tied by a set of protocols, open standards and
agreements for cooperation (O'Reilly, 2005), that tend to closely do as much as any
single software provider. However, the former is quickly losing advantage to the latter
because it lacks interoperability (i.e. the ability to work together with other services)
(O'Reilly, 2005). Since the Web is a platform that operates in the internet and is
accessible by a multiplicity of different devices, APIs developed in the Web-platform
guarantee interoperability from the start, contrary to programs developed for desktop
operating systems which might not be compatible in other devices.

The set of small, open standard, cheap
applications that constitute the base of the
Web-as-a-platform, are part of what is called
"the long tail", a type of “power law”
statistical distribution often seen in the
relationship between product popularity and
From: http://stephaniefierman.com/category/blogs product choice. The long tail embodies items
(i.e. Web applications) that, despite selling far fewer units than more favored ones (i.e.

49


expensive packaged and licensed software), represent significant market opportunities
if provided to a certain number of niches. They may be individually unpopular, but add
up to a substantial amount (Anderson, 2007). After all, small sites make up the bulk of
the Internet’s content while narrow niches make up the bulk of the Internet’s possible
applications (Musser, 2007). The long tail market represents a major opportunity for
companies with not enough operating capital to spend on proprietary expensive
traditional desktop applications and software. Alternatively, companies can look for
cheaper Web application alternatives that best accommodate their needs. With Web-
as-a-platform, companies can build their own bundle of cheap open source software to
use in business activities.

The ability of the Web to be used as a platform brings several advantages,
among which is its similarity of use to traditional desktop applications made possible by
technologies such as AJAX, the promotion of interoperability between applications and
users and, lastly, the easiness of contact with more accessible long tail applications and
systems by companies.

3.3.4. Technological accessibility

A powerful force in Web 2.0 is its strong tradition of working with open
standards, using open source software, making use of free data, re-using data and
working in a spirit of open innovation (Anderson, 2007). The accessibility and openness
of some online services and applications allows users to adapt them to better fit their
needs. For instance, Google Maps' AJAX interface can be quickly decrypted to include
and remix new data, generating new services (O'Reilly, 2005). Some application and
service creators (at the far end of the tail) even choose to give up their copyrights and
allow others to remix their creations (Anderson, 2006).

The evolution of the Web demonstrates a tendency towards simplicity and ease
of use. Much of the hypertext theory, previously used in Web sites and online
applications development, is being overthrown for ideal design. Lightweight

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programming solutions facilitate assembling software and programs in novel and
effective ways, providing opportunities for companies to beat the competition by
getting better at harnessing and integrating services provided by others. Amazon
reports that 95% of the usage of its Web services is made through XML over HTTP in a
lightweight approach referred to as REST, while the remaining 5% is done by heavy
SOAP Web services stacks (O'Reilly, 2005). Moreover, the simplicity of usage and the
lack of need of greater maintenance drops the need to have human resources to take
after the systems. In effect, Craigslist, Flickr and iPod Radar are examples of websites
that run on very few staff or that operate on open source software and low-cost servers.
These examples reflect how the use of Web 2.0 platform-development extends to new
business models (Musser, 2007).

3.3.5. Openness to user contribution and experience

Openness to user contribution and experience refers to a way in which Web 2.0
improves the design of and the ease with which programs and systems are used, based
on an architecture of participation, or “a built-in ethic of cooperation, in which the
service acts primarily as an intelligent broker, connecting the edges to each other and
harnessing the power of the users themselves” (O'Reilly, 2005). In other words, “the
architecture of participation occurs when, through the normal use of an application or
service, the service itself gets better” (Anderson, 2007). Additionally, this segment
expands the concept of perpetual beta, in which software and program releases are no
longer made, but the users are required to engage in and contribute to an eternal
update of the programs and services they use.

The evolution in Web design, Web pages and the development of a new
generation RIAs, which carry the best elements of the desktop and online user
experiences, provide the user with highly interactive, responsive experiences with rich,
graphical user interfaces (Musser, 2007). The design of these services can improve and
facilitate mass user participation (Anderson, 2007) and can be achieved by combining
the best of online and offline experiences, resulting in higher user satisfaction and

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genuine competitive advantages (Musser, 2007). For example, AJAX allows Web
applications to be as rich as local PC-based applications and Gmail, combines the
strengths of the Web with user interfaces that approach PC interfaces in usability
(O'Reilly, 2005).

A company's success relies on its ability to harness the potential of Web 2.0 and
create applications that learn from their users (O'Reilly, 2005), encouraging involvement
by providing an architecture (easy-of-use, handy tools, etc.) that lowers the barriers to
participation (Anderson, 2007). Automated systems that are able to learn from their
users are a big step in Web services development. Amazon.com already provides a
similar service and is able to advise users on products they may be interested in based
on their browsing pattern. Companies may use such systems to facilitate decision-
making or to identify their employees major concerns, since by looking at the system
they can see what employees are mostly looking after.

In the Internet era, users think in terms of services, not packaged software, and
they expect these services to improve over time without versions or installations
needed. Software has become a service that is always on and always improving (Musser,
2007). For this reason, operations that maintain software enhancement need to be
executed on a daily basis (Google's success depends in automating processes to gain
cost advantages over competitors) and users need to be treated as co-developers
(contributing to service development in a continuous manner) (O'Reilly, 2005). Today,
services such as Gmail and Flickr are always considered to be in beta-testing since they
are "developed in the open, with new features slipstreamed in on a monthly, weekly, or
even daily basis" (O'Reilly, 2005).

Nowadays, power that once belonged solely to public media is now accessible
and capable of manipulation in private users' hands. The public and corporatized media
is undergoing profound changes as the implications of the Web's existence reveal new
capabilities of the media's former audience to contribute its own materials for

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programs, newspapers and websites. Much of recent media attention concerning the
rise of Web 2.0 phenomenon has focused on UCG (Anderson, 2007).

3.3.6. Portability promotion

Another feature of Web 2.0 is that it is no longer limited to the PC platform
(O'Reilly, 2005). Internet applications and services that are limited to a single device are
less valuable than those that are connected, since it is becoming increasingly common
for individuals to assess the same content from several sources every day (office
desktop, laptop, home computer, portable media player, game console, and mobile
phone) (Musser, 2007).

John Musser provides two examples of the potential of portability in Web 2.0
(Musser, 2007):

 Snapshots can now be captured from a mobile phone; sent by email over wireless
carrier network to a desktop computer for editing; uploaded to an online photo-
sharing service; collaborated on by other users via comments, ratings, and
groupings; syndicated via RSS and APIs to more devices including a home television
via TiVo-like services; and downloaded to handheld photo-capable media players.

 Desktop computer users can create music playlists via online databases and
download them to portable devices. Actual listening histories are later uploaded
from devices to an online music service, and collaborative filters algorithmically
combine and filter to create virtual radio stations streamed to browsers and other
devices; new Internet-aware home stereo components connect these streams
directly to users’ living rooms.

Similarly, iTunes is the best example of the portability principle to date and most
of its success is attributable to its “integrating data and services across desktops, mobile
devices and internet servers" (Musser, 2007). The application seamlessly reaches from
the handheld device to a massive Web back-end, with the PC acting as a local cache and

53


control station (O'Reilly, 2005). However, iTunes is not a Web application per se, but it
leverages the power of the Web platform, making it a seamless, almost invisible part of
their infrastructure (O'Reilly, 2005).

This chapter's summarizes what constitutes each of Web 2.0's principles of the
proposed framework model based on the research conducted. Using this model, the
following chapter discusses on how the abovementioned Web 2.0 principles can in
effect contribute for BI improvement.

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IV. Discussion

In the previous chapter, a research model was developed based on an outline of
professional contributions to an examination of Web 2.0 principles. Following the
model, this chapter will develop the applications of Web 2.0 principles for the benefit of
corporate BI.

4.1. Contribution to data generation

By analyzing the contribution of Web 2.0 to data generation, it is possible to see
that data can be collected from the way users utilize internet applications, be stored
more cheaply and distributed more easily among users.

To begin with, online business organizations (Google, Ebay and Amazon) possess
the ability to gather intelligence about customers, products, markets, competitors, etc.
by "continuously data mining, monitoring and analyzing e-content" (Bhatnagar, 2009)
concerning how people use internet services and applications, with the help of
"techniques (e.g. integrated search and in-memory analytics) capable of analyzing large
data sets" (King, 2008). Google Analytics and Webtrends are examples of tools that
report the results of such work. These tools provide businesses with two advantages.
First, because most of the data they collect derives from user participation, most of the
effort in providing data is on the user, which makes data acquisition easier and cheaper.
Moreover, these tools "require minimum IT intervention" (Bhatnagar, 2009), reducing
time and effort spent on retrieving information. Consequently, companies providing
such service posses a strategic advantage over traditional BI suppliers.

Additionally, although storage and bandwidth costs have been decreasing, the
demand of managing large amounts of information still presents challenges, particularly
for audio, photo and video data (Musser, 2007). One solution would be to outsource
such management capabilities to "cloud computing" services. These services are
"typically charged by usage and can be scaled dynamically" (Warr, 2009), which means
the company would only pay depending on how much capacity it needed. Alternatively,

55


companies could use websites such as Flickr and Youtube to store rich data for free.
Therefore decreasing the costs of storing, handling and distributing data.

Finally, by leveraging simple, open data formats and distribution mechanisms
(like RSS) companies can create low-cost mechanisms for wider internal distribution of
data (Musser, 2007). Besides, using RSS would lower the complexity of handling data by
allowing users to sort the information they would want BI solutions to report.

A limiting factor is that "different companies would tend to focus on one or more
Internet tools for their environmental scanning needs, which depends on a firm's
experience with the Internet", among others (Pawar et al., 1997). Consequently, success
depends on a company's willingness to invest in education, which could be more costly
than the benefits generated.

Another limitation concerns data privacy and copyrights. As companies begin to
realize that data control may become a chief competitive advantage, "we may see
heightened attempts at control" (O'Reilly, 2005). Most online available data is accessible
due to copyrights being only loosely enforced. if harsh copyrights enforcement is
established, that may compromise the amount and richness of information gathered.

4.2. Openness to collective intelligence

The openness to collective intelligence by Web 2.0 reflects an increase in
collaboration between individuals, facilitated by the architecture of participation and
the use of social software. As a product of such interaction there are network effects.

4.2.1. The use of social software

According to analysts at Gartner, collaborative decision-making combines the
information from BI systems with collaborative input gleaned through the use of social
software (Schlegel et al, 2009). Social software "represents an ideology (...) whereby
both the developer and consumer are collaborators in development" (Mason, 2008). The
consumer/user can contribute to the BI system in two ways. First, they can employ

56


social software to help developers improve the BI system either by using comments and
rating tools to evaluate its functionality, or by using wikis and blogs to discuss most of
their usage difficulties. Second, they can apply ratings to evaluate the usefulness of the
system's outputs, recur to tags, folksonomies and social bookmarking to more efficiently
organize those outputs and, finally, use comments to enrich those outputs.

One limitation is that the results of tagging/rating/commenting can be dubious
since one does not know how acquainted with a certain issue a person needs to be in
order to rate and comment on it. Consequently, there is no control over the quality level
of the inputs generated, unless some control over user access is implemented.

Additionally and inspired by social applications like Facebook and Linkedin, BI
systems could incorporate profile pages for each employee to facilitate the
identification of knowledge pools in the firm. The access to intelligence would be
facilitated even further if those profiles included comments, ratings and tags to BI that
person used in the past.

4.2.2. The architecture of participation

Opening BI applications to collective intelligence means guaranteeing an
architecture of participation that brings users with different corporate backgrounds
(from managers to sales personnel) to access data in ways that make the most
contextual sense to them (King, 2008), certifying that BI reports are being adjusted to
and evaluated by different hierarchical echelons. Therefore, top management collects
more complete insights and become better informed for decision-making.

4.2.3. The collaboration environment

Tools such as blogs, wikis, forums, MMORPGs and other collaboration
technologies provide lower-cost, easier-to-adopt, scalable solutions to solve long-
standing enterprise issues (Musser, 2007) relying on effective collaboration

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"environments that enable decision makers to discuss an issue, brainstorm options,
evaluate their pros and cons, and agree on a course of action" (Schlegel et al, 2009).

For example, "Greenphosphor.com" is a developer building tool that allows
Second Life (a MMORPG) users to visualize and interact with complex data "in world"
and then to reach collaborative decisions based on them(Middleton, 2009). The use of
such collaboration platforms reduces server costs and expands the recruitment market
to the World.

However, the risk of internet collaboration platforms is the lack of control over
the quality, format and security of information display, because the company does not
own the servers. Moreover, if employees are not familiar with such platforms, these are
not likely to become widely adopted. For these reasons, there can be some degree of
improvement of BI systems in what concerns their collaborative capabilities, but maybe
not to the point of fully externalizing the collaboration platform.

4.2.4. The resultant network effects

Ultimately, the level of success of Web 2.0 and BI services is measured by the
generated network effect. A successful service guarantees online social interaction,
collaboration and product development and improvement. When users find the service
practical and useful, the network effect begins to build. As a consequence, individuals
become locked into that service, since "switching to another would mean they would
have less people to share their work with" (Anderson, 2007). It is not yet clear whether
the network effect is a good or a bad thing. On one hand, once the network effect
begins to build and people become aware of the increase in a service's popularity, a
product often takes off very rapidly in a marketplace (Anderson, 2007). However, if the
user becomes dependent on that service and a better solution appears, he will not
move unless all people that he is used to work with move along as well, which can be
more difficult to achieve. Another problem with network effects is the difficulty to
actually achieve it. Because only a small percentage of users contribute for most online

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projects, and even the largest enterprises have only a fraction of the entire universe of
users, this smaller scale can lead to a much smaller pool of actual participants (Musser,
2007).

4.3. Ability to use as a platform

The similarity of use to traditional desktop applications made possible by
technologies such as AJAX may change the way in which BI software is developed. Not
only would the user be accustomed to see a more familiar design while navigating
online, but information could be perceived more easily. However, "although BI vendors
have ported most desktop functionality to browsers, for the most part, we do not
leverage the Web, we just deploy WebTops" (Raden, 2006). The opportunity to improve
BI is still open as "the wider capabilities made possible by Web 2.0, such as
collaboration, advisers, personal agents and cognitive engines, have not entered the BI
space yet" (Raden, 2006).

If BI is indeed supplied through an application that would run on any desktop,
interoperability comes into play. Having the same way to present data and contribute to
decision-making at all levels of an organization would provide several advantages. First,
data communication in the company could be standardized. As employees at all levels
receive information through the same service, communication between departments
and between frontline and top management becomes easier. Second, because a
platform would allow its users to evaluate the information that is being supplied to
them, the application would be capable of being rated by its content and criticized
through collaborative tools, which could provide all users with a better insight on the
company's business. Third, as a platform, the application can be customized according
to what users feel is more appropriate, facilitating the navigation process, the access to
information and understanding of the BI generated.

As the theory of the long tail explains, Web 2.0 makes it possible to access
applications and services providers for a lower price than those of BI professionals. After

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all, "the nature of online commerce can significantly lower distribution, inventory and
sales costs" (Musser, 2007). Nevertheless, there is a trade-off for using such
applications. The reduced costs also come from "enabling more self-service IT with tools
like wikis and mashup-style integration tools" (Musser, 2007). Although employees
might become less dependent on the IT department, they would still have to adapt the
applications to fit their needs, thus loosing time. In one way, customization and design
of BI applications may come before time effectiveness, and this balance must be
discussed among the company's management officials.

Another application of Web 2.0 in BI is how information can be better displayed
in BI systems (King, 2008). The literature review has shown that current BI applications
do not provide a friendly user experience. They appear to offer little insight and have
difficulty in addressing business problems. They require experts to deal with all the
service formatting and programming and results of those systems may take too long to
be useful (Foody, 2009). Effective information retrieval of both structured and
unstructured enterprise data is one of corporate IT's greatest deficiencies - this is where
vast amounts of valuable information goes underused (Musser, 2007). Using Julia King's
example (King, 2008), if on one hand it is possible to have a call center agent to have
access to multiple types of information about the caller and have it display on the same
screen, even though that data might be stored in several different places, then it would
be possible to apply the same principle to BI tools. A BI tool that acts as a middle
software and that is only capable of displaying useful information sourced from
different places.

4.4. Technological accessibility

The way BI software is licensed and deployed is still firmly rooted in pre-Internet
thinking, unlike Web 2.0 development leaders who invest in continuous improvement,
with no upfront licensing cost, just usage, running on massively scalable commodity
hardware over open-source operating systems (Raden, 2006). The technological
contributions of Web 2.0 to BI gathering relate to scalability, lightweight and cost.

60


Scalability and lightweight may have an influence over cost, since "changes in cost,
reusability, process, and strategy mean much more can be done for much less" (Musser,
2007). However, for this discussion's purpose it is useful to grasp them separately.

Scalability means having the "technology to deliver products to market faster
and cheaper without sacrificing future growth" (Musser, 2007). Scalability is mostly a
technological capability to describe that software is capable of growing to better
accommodate more users and/or more capabilities without having to suffer drastic
changes in its programming. The use of scalability in BI systems would allow companies
to engage in less upgrading investments through the years, thus reducing time and
money losses.

Lightweight means that Web 2.0's software programming requirements are less
complex and more accessible to tech-savvy users, assuring advantages for BI users and
for the company. From the user side, the use of lightweight technologies (mashups,
REST, etc.) to program BI systems promotes information delivery efficiency, because
they can be easily adapted to best fit users' needs, delivering improved usage
experience (e.g. using mashups to mix data and create more dynamic information
displays); conversely, they improve business insight since users could choose the type of
information output they would like the system to provide. From the company side,
simple programming requisites lessens the time and effort taken in retrieving
intelligence from the systems and the need for human resources to develop and
maintain them, promoting cost reductions. Hence solving "the problem of overburdened
IT departments or in-house BI experts to fulfill users' request for information" (King,
2008).

By adopting a lightweight, scalable approach, many traditional costs and risks
can be reduced and less upfront capital is required before seeing a return on investment
(Musser, 2007). The cost reduction may come from the use of cheap open-source
software, mainly available at the market's long tail. In the past it was not possible to use
Microsoft Office without (legally) without paying the royalties. Today Open Office or

61


even (online) Google Docs basically provide the same service. The market for open
applications brings chief advantages:

 A drop in the effort and cost of engaging in research and software development to
gather intelligence indoors (decreasing the first mover disadvantage);
 Companies can reduce the risk of software malfunction by waiting for the
technological maturity of applications and services built by others and adopt them
only when others have proven their worth;
 Open applications are cost-advantageous since they provide a cheap, but still
reliable alternative to expensive BI solutions.

Additionally, "small BI vendors are trying to show their innovation stripes in a
rapidly consolidating industry" (Weier, 2008). As a consequence, this new market
provides the opportunity for companies to outsource this services "by asking a
specialized developer of such solutions" (Pawar et al., 1997), lowering the cost and
hassle of having to deal with BI software management internally. Alternatively, there is
a "new class of offerings designed to let businesses quickly mash up public Web sources
with internal data sources to create a new breed of analytic applications" (Weier, 2008).
The latter could be used in BI software as a stepping stone to rely solely on open
software solutions to provide a company with intelligence.

However, one of the major barriers to technological accessibility for BI is
intellectual property rights (e.g. copyrights) as, if applied to open software, they can
disrupt the cost advantages discussed above by closing access to the long tail market.

4.5. Openness to user contribution and experience

The complexity of BI software usage, the time wasted in getting results, the lack
of tacit knowledge display and the overwhelming amount of information that reaches
users constitute some of the barriers to adoption. However, there are some concepts in
which Web 2.0 tools design can help change this.

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The application of technologies such as AJAX in BI systems facilitates user
adoption and engagement with software by providing a much friendly interface that
replicates standard desktop software capabilities, making users feel more comfortable
with the BI system's working environment. In a business context this is particularly
important because users not always take advantage of software's full potential, which
then becomes a burden to the company.

The development of Web 2.0 occasioned the appearance of the "prosumer",
who actively uses and generates online content. User generated content is at the
foundation of the openness to user contribution. The proliferation of tools, such as
Youtube, Flickr and other websites have made it possible for users to upload their own
content. If a BI system is ready to take on multiple types of data (e.g. video, audio,
pictures, etc.) that users create, its value increases the more participative users it gets.
One of the problems with such capability is space, or how companies can afford to store
all the information to support decision-making. The answer to that problem may very
well be in associating pages like Youtube to store videos made by company users and
link those videos to the information on the BI system or, alternatively resort to cloud
computing solutions.

Finally the concept of architecture of participation suggests that applications can
learn from their users, and so could BI applications. This opens two possibilities of
application for BI. On one hand, applications can be improved by direct user action.
Although BI software does not necessarily need to be connected to the Web, if it
possesses a relevant amount of constant users, that community can be engaged in real-
time testing of new features (i.e. become beta testers) and contribute to the service
improvement. In this way companies do not need to constantly be purchasing updated
versions of the same software, but can save the investment for internal BI application
development. On the other hand, applications can be improved by indirect user action
and this is where most BI systems fail, in delivering tacit knowledge (i.e. a person's
experience, their preferences, their rating of a given content, etc.). Consequently, they

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fail in evaluating the relevance of data for each possible user. Several Web 2.0 tools are
capable of recognizing a user's choices and could thus provide information on a user’s
interest which would repair this BI flaw.

Web 2.0 has shown that "delivering the right content in the optimum manner
stems from understanding visitor behavior on site" (Bhatnagar, 2009). Thus users would
feel much more engaged with a BI tool if given the chance to contribute to its content. If
BI tools are capable of being manipulated so that users can upload their own ways of
looking at information, the system itself becomes more appealing and rich at the same
time.

However, it would be quite difficult to change the way in which companies
actually gather BI. According to Mary Hayes Weier, it is hard to imagine Web 2.0
approaches eliminating the need for users to run queries on data and generate reports.
She says that the new mashup technologies are mainly ways for presenting information
in new, appealing forms while bringing in helpful external information (Weier, 2008).

4.6. Portability promotion

Web 2.0 promotes portability of information and data across multiple devices. In
a business context, stakeholders can have access to information regardless of their
location and type of equipment they use, as long as the equipment has internet access.
This system also guarantees that information spreads at a faster pace, rather than using
just an e-mail to do so. The implications for BI gathering are not given by portability per
se. Portability is only one of Web 2.0's ready devices characteristics and the advantages
brought by it only apply if users in a company do have access to them. However, they do
bring up the subject of having available any information in any part of the World.

Accessibility to information comes in many forms. Since the platform in which
Web 2.0 operates is the internet, given the rise of internet enabled gadgets, the source
of intelligence is no longer limited to the computer. "Yet, even that multiaccess scenario
will soon seem quaint given the rapid growth of Internet-aware devices and the coming

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sensor Web where data streams online in ever-increasing speed and quantity. This is
where the Web as platform truly reaches every edge" (Musser, 2007).

The more varied devices there are, the more opportunities there are for BI to be
available to users, which brings two advantages. First, since the internet is a platform
whose characteristics do not change regardless of the equipment used to access it,
users can select the gear that best fits their needs. Second, if information becomes
available in every platform, BI becomes portable. An example would be having a sales
force spread around the World in which the only thing they would need would be an
internet browser-enabled device to assess BI reports. Portability of BI is not necessarily
expensive, but only as expensive as accessing the internet. Since information flows
through the internet, it only takes a validation in the receptive device to identify
whether or not the user has access to the content.

Moreover, "P2P (peer-to-peer) technologies break the Internet down by
rendering each client as a server and shredding files so they can be served from multiple
locations" (Raden, 2006). This is an important aspect for companies that spend a
significant amount of money in data base space and management. Companies can have
either one of two options. On one hand, instead of having each device to act as a server
to carry BI, a device could be used only as a way to access that intelligence, which would
be stored somewhere on the internet under cheaper servers, thus reducing a company's
costs in BI data bases. On the other hand, if a company values the speed to access
information, then each device can act as a server for BI storage. The more a certain BI
report is asked for, the more devices it is in, and so the more quickly it can be
downloaded to another device.

However, devices are only gradually becoming location-aware and many edge
platforms have limitations in raw performance, input/output capabilities, and limited or
no ability to function when not connected to the network. (Musser, 2007). As a
consequence, the benefit of such portability for BI cannot currently be fully
implemented.

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In summary, this chapter has disclosed several instances where the
improvement of BI is achievable with the use of Web 2.0, namely: the use of online data
providers that market cheaper solutions for BI data storage, management and
distribution; the use of social software to evaluate and contribute to the richness of BI
systems as the result of network effects; the development of platforms that standardize
communications, facilitate classification and rating of BI system's information output,
customized according to users' needs; systems that allow integration of data from
several different sources and that facilitate information display; the access to a market
of lightweight, scalable and cheap solutions that not only adapt to the company growth
needs, but also are easy to program and maintain; the contact with technologies such as
AJAX that can help build user friendly interfaces that also harness user participation and
commitment to contribute to BI systems' improvement; the deployment of software
capabilities that can learn from user interaction with the BI system; the widening of
portable devices capable of receiving BI reports, enabling companies to virtually make
intelligence accessible from any place in the World at a faster pace.

The advantages provided by Web 2.0 technologies for BI are thus undeniable.
User participation is a major characteristic for improving data collection and Web 2.0 in
general allows small and medium-sized business owners to access information normally
acquired by the budgets of larger competitors. Web 2.0 allows communication among
all departments in a company and thus enriches information for decision-making. The
need for caution in adapting Web 2.0 technologies to BI gathering remains since
companies must prepare their employees to utilize the tools efficiently and strategically.
The need for instruction and continuing guidance of employees at every level of the
company will present challenges. With effect, Web 2.0 tools can indeed improve
Business Intelligence gathering.

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This chapter analyzes how Web 2.0 can help improve BI gathering in several
fields and mentions in which areas it should be improved. The subsequent chapter
summarizes the Web 2.0's impact on BI gathering and presents a conclusion to this
dissertation by answering the research question proposed in the introduction.

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V. Conclusion

BI presents challenges that Web 2.0 must overcome. However, the dissertation’s
model development chapter has shown that Web 2.0, not without problems and the
need for further developments, meets these challenges.

In its contribution to generating data for BI systems, Web 2.0 presents solutions
such as online analytical tools, cloud computing solutions and RSS solutions that gather,
store, manage and distribute intelligence throughout the organization, guaranteeing
that managers are better and more accurately informed for decision-making. Moreover,
these online solutions are cheaper, allowing a tight control over the costs of data
storage and management, consequently providing savings for companies that perform
BI.

In what concerns the openness to collective intelligence, Web 2.0 could increase
the efficiency of business decision-making with the help of collaborative platforms, such
as blogs, wikis and MMORPGs that provide low cost alternative solutions for workers to
share and produce intelligence among themselves. Moreover, corporate BI systems
could be developed through the use of tags, folksonomies and social bookmarking to
evaluate its content and better reveal what is really important for readers and
determine if collaboration tools are useful and providing the right information. On the
other hand, the use of ratings based on user opinions without knowing their curricula
means results can be rather dubious, and may not contribute to intelligence
improvement. Lastly, the use of social software applications, such as profile pages, will
give greater access to those in a company who possess BI, and the deployment of an
architecture of participation that engages users from different hierarchical backgrounds
in a company to contribute to the sharing of information among all types of employees
and not just a company’s Web experts.

The new platform of collaboration represented by Web 2.0 presents a solution
that facilitates decision-making by providing a standardized way of communication,

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enabling companies to receive input from all levels of the organization. Web 2.0
technologies like AJAX can facilitate information retrieval by simplifying how it is
displayed, thus reducing a reader’s confusion. Furthermore, access to the long tail
market provides contacts with low-cost suppliers of BI solutions, providing companies
with new opportunities to renew entirely, or partially, their existing BI system.

The level of technological accessibility provided by Web 2.0 technologies
guarantees access to scalable, lightweight programming tools to build BI software that
evolves with the company's growth thus preventing unnecessary investment in human
resources to operate it and minimal IT intervention to update systems. Moreover, the
use of lightweight programming software that is easily accessible by tech-savvy users
facilitates employee participation in BI development. On the other hand, lack of
familiarity with such tools will hinder employee performance.

Opening BI systems to user contribution improves decision-making because it
allows the consideration of new insights from user generated content, either stored in
free websites or through cloud computing solutions. Web 2.0's capability of assimilating
tacit knowledge helps in recognizing patterns in employees' usage of software and with
the help of technologies, such as AJAX, they can improve how BI reports are displayed
and overcome user resistance to interact with them. On the downside, companies
would still need to invest time and effort in educating their users to familiarize
themselves with Web 2.0 tools functionality, but given the general knowledge of
computers, especially by young workers, education should proceed smoothly.

In what concerns the portability promoted by Web 2.0, users can more easily
share intelligence with the help of peer-to-peer solutions and this will significantly
contribute to lowering the costs of data storage and management. Furthermore, the
ability to collect intelligence from various devices can increase the speed of data sharing
and thus improve the pace at which decisions can be made.

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This MSc dissertation has explored the research question "Can Web 2.0
principles and tools improve the gathering of Business Intelligence?" The dissertation's
research has answered the question in the affirmative, indicating many areas in which
Web 2.0 could improve corporate BI. Furthermore, the dissertation has developed a
model to define specific ways in which Web 2.0 improves the development of existing BI
tools in creating new knowledge areas that are accessible to more corporate users.

Thus it is clearly demonstrable that Web 2.0 can improve Business Intelligence
gathering and should be considered by companies for investment as a supporting tool in
daily business activities or as an improvement of already existing decision support
systems.

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5.1. Concerns for future research

Although enough evidence has been gathered to provide a positive answer to
the dissertation's research question, the suggested model for understanding Web 2.0
and its implications for BI is not complete and thus has the capacity for future
development through even more extensive research of the current literature. In order
to reinforce the model's validity further studies, which consider more sources, should be
made.

Several subjects not developed within this dissertation call for further research
and development. Among the most important are the following:

Future research should define ways to promote the use of Web 2.0 tools in BI
among corporate employees, since without user participation such tools become
irrelevant. The question that is still to be answered is “In what ways can companies
implement strategies that insure corporate-wide use of Web 2.0 tools for BI gathering?”
Thus, personnel motivation is a future key subject and managers should look closely on
how to make their employees engage with Web 2.0 tools.

Another important issue is the security of corporate information when
employees utilize Web 2.0 tools. The low cost advantages of using Web 2.0 are directly
related to the fact that these tools are open and free, used and easily accessed by
anyone. In a business environment of sensitive and confidential information it becomes
extremely important to assess how companies can benefit from Web 2.0 technologies
while, at the same time, guaranteeing the security of corporate information.

Finally, an area of needed future research is defining ways in which businesses
can extend the use of Web 2.0’s collaboration platforms through new relationships with
different stakeholders. In other words, "When Web 2.0 extends your business processes
to your suppliers, customers, partners and regulators in a truly distributed architecture,
who will own the data?" (Raden, 2006). How can one guarantee data integration from
all sides?

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