Practicality and use of Webfeeds
As someone who believes in the practicality and near ubiquity of webfeeds (RSS and Atom) I often find it grounding to look at reports of how business and organizations tackle how to include Web 2 application tools, like RSS, in their everyday life. It also reminds of the need to make this technology more practical and not only pure puff. I came across this report- entitled IT Execs Seek New Ways to Justify Web 2.0 - from Computerworld.com.
William Hayes, the associate director of library and literature informatics of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company Biogen Idec Inc, has embarked on a plan to install Web 2 tools to in their company.
Hayes … knows that proving the worth of such Web 2.0 tools to senior management will be difficult using traditional return on investment metrics.
The ROI “is going to be qualitative for us,” Hayes said. “If it improves interactivity and we’re getting usage of the tools and there is better communications in the company, then we will consider it a success.”
As part of the pilot project, Hayes and his team are creating a wiki to house content generated from research requests, along with feedback on that research. The plan also calls for using NewsGator Technologies Inc.’s RSS server to provide Biogen Idec’s researchers with feeds anytime new information about a particular drug is posted online, Hayes said. [Source]
Even if it seems Web 2 Tools – like web feeds – are everywhere there is still a need to prove its practicality. Have you had any experience to share with adopting Web 2 Tools in your business or institutions?
