Some companies report they are improving communication with partners and customers with Web 2.0 tools. However, newly released study data shows that opinion is mixed as to whether Web 2.0 can offer a long-term competitive advantage.

In March, I reported on a study of 2,800 executives by McKinsey & Company, which found strong interest in many Web 2.0 technologies but much less widespread adoption. McKinsey looked at six tools, including mashups (not covered by Forrester), blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, and social networking. Investment in or planned adoption included the following: social networking (37%), RSS (35%), podcasts (35%), wikis (33%), blogs (32%), and mashups (21%).

McKinsey has just published a follow-up article (registration required) elaborating more on how the responding executives feel about the value of their companies’ Web 2.0 adoption.

Namely, many said that using Web 2.0 technologies have developed an easier and more flexible way of bringing technology into businesses, compared to traditional top-down approaches, McKinsey reports. “A key theme that emerges from the discussions is that many of these technologies start at a company’s grassroots level. Because many of these tools are easy to implement, small groups of interested individuals can launch informal pilots to test their viability.”

McKinsey also notes that while opinions differ among discussion participants as to whether Web 2.0 technologies have yet demonstrated any economic impact, some consensus emerges that the technologies are valuable internally (mostly by improving collaboration) and externally (by strengthening connections among suppliers, partners, and customers).

As one survey participant put it:

“It’s too early to claim competitive advantage . . . but we have used blogs to strengthen our stakeholder communication and we are currently implementing wiki technology in our intranet and extranet sites. The main benefit seems to be the stronger sense of community that we can nurture through technologies that are more interactive, less push.”

However, McKinsey notes, other partcipants see the competitive advantage as fleeting, at best. As another executive put it:

“While we have been in the forefront of most technology upheavals over the past two decades, none of our investments have provided us with any significant competitive advantage for a significant duration. The technologies tend to get adopted by competing financial institutions with no meaningful time gap [and] tend to get commoditized very rapidly.”

McKinsey says that overall, the general sense among surveyed executives is that “it is, in many cases, too soon to tell” what kind of impact Web 2.0 will have.

However, some respondents did point some visible effects — not quite measurable yet — in specific business areas, such as better communication with customers. “The most valuable aspects today are providing a means for customers to have a dialogue with us,” said one executive. Another panelist cited blogs and RSS as factors “that are helping to reduce the customer churn rate.”

Interestingly, several participants reported they are using Web 2.0 tools to tap customers’ opinions and expertise to improve product design. “We now see customers, particularly the professionals and customer experts, as having a much greater role in the development of new products,” says one. Another adds, “Our success is based on allowing [clients] to participate in the process.”