Enterprise spending on Web 2.0 is set for a five-year boom, growing 43% each year from $764 million (£386m) in 2008 to an expected $4.6 billion in 2013.
The growth spurt predicted by Forrester Research takes into account enterprise spending on social networking, RSS, blogs, wikis, mash-ups, podcasting, widgets and analysis of Web 2.0 in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
The report found that over half of the enterprises surveyed in North America and Europe considered Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008, while many large enterprises, including General Motors and McDonald’s, have already made heavy use of Web 2.0 tools, both to reach customers and encourage employee collaboration.
Forrester analyst Oliver Young predicts that, while the effect of Web 2.0 will be enormous, “social computing and Web 2.0 marketing are still in their infancy, and in general the market is still in an experimentation phase”.
Despite the rising popularity of social computing, Young is not expecting an “easy road” for firms selling Web 2.0 software.
“The market for enterprise Web 2.0 tools will be defined by commoditisation, eroding prices and incorporation into enterprise collaboration software over the next five years, and will eventually disappear into the fabric of the enterprise,” he observes.
Further reading
Social networking within the enterprise Business use of social networking is fuelling a revolution in collaboration
The collaborative effect Collaboration technologies are on the cusp of achieving the critical mass to deliver a long-promised revolution
