Interesting research out of Forrester Research by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff entitled "Social Technographics" in which they assert some interesting observations.
Not the least of these is that the customer base should define the approach, and not vice versus as tends to be the case and to which I'm inclined to agree. Too often, the shiny stuff is the stuff we put forward because it is, well shiny. And it may well be enduring in the end, but we let the tool define the strategy versus the customer.
We've seen that with Flash technologies, we've seen it in a lot of things over years and seconds past. The customer is always the most compelling reason anyone should have for doing anything.
The other observations came in the form of numbers.
The first... maintains that 13% of us are "creators" in the online world. I think the number's a little high. And in light of the Bill Tancer article of a couple of weeks ago, I'm pretty comfortable with that feeling.
The other number was fully 52% could care less and are not at all invested in Web 2.0 intiatives. Again, I find myself disagreeing. This goes back to a posting a couple of months ago based on Reviews and Ratings and Why User Generated Content Wins that states, according to a BusinessWeek article, 63% of shoppers are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings and reviews.
If the call to action is the sword we all live or die by, I would have to say that 52% number is slightly off base.
Have a good one.
~The (SEP) Guy