Enterprise 2.0 Lessons from YouTube
by Bill Ives
I think YouTube deserves its much of its success for the open ended way they allow participants to share content. One of the lessons learned for successful web 2.0 sites is to provide a platform for others’ creativity by placing few technical requirements on them. At least this is what the startup success stories tell us.
Here is a discussion in the NYT, The Many Tribes of YouTube, of its video-response feature, “which essentially allows users to converse through video, has managed to convene partisans of almost every field of human endeavor, creating video clusters that begin with an opening video, and snowball as fans and detractors are moved to respond with videos of their own.” This is a great way to start a community and gain commitment to YouTube.
They do other things to promote stickiness. “YouTube’s interface allows users to track the history of anything they watch, as well as to pursue video responses to it. As a further inducement to stay on the site, YouTube proposes a half-dozen works that might interest you whenever you’re streaming a video.” Good ideas. This could be used within the enterprise for the discussion of business issues. It could also support communities of practice and even help create them given the power of video, if done right, to engage participation.
Many enterprises now use YouTube to promote themselves to the outside world. I will be surprised if the Enterprise version is not far off to enable the same robust communication within the firewall. If YouTube does not do it, and they have the branding, then some else should. The possibilities are intriguing.
