Business Value Of Web 2.0 Tools Hard To Measure -- Web 2.0 -- InformationWeek

"Business IT pros said Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, generated the highest value while blogging produced the lowest, the Forrester Research survey shows.
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
July 27, 2007 04:09 PM

While Web 2.0 technologies are beginning to take root in businesses, measuring the value of the cutting-edge tools remain elusive for most companies, a research firm said Friday.

Nearly two out of three IT decision-makers surveyed by Forrester Research said their companies used traditional value metrics, such as return on investment and total cost of ownership, to evaluate success or failure of Web 2.0 deployments. Yet, rather than point to hard facts, such as support center calls offset by a self-service rich Internet application or Web site traffic from an RSS feed, respondents more often pointed to softer benefits, such as business efficiency and competitive advantage as the true value of Web 2.0 in their companies.

As a result, Forrester believes that many businesses will shy away from adopting Web 2.0 tools, or wait to expand their use, until they are able to better quantify the business value. The researcher's finding was in line with a recent survey by InformationWeek, which found more than half of business technology pros either sceptical about blogs, wikis, online social networks, and other new Web tools, or willing -- but wary -- about adopting them."

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So it seems education decision makers are not the only ones to shy away from Web 2.0. I mean, how many universities provide their newsletters with an RSS feed?