Just catching up on some reading recently and I found an article that stopped me in my tracks. Last week, Reuters published an article entitled “Porn passed over as Web users become more social.” Bill Tancer wrote in his book Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters that after analyzing Web search data on 10 million users he found that “social networking sites are the hottest attraction on the Internet, dethroning pornography and highlighting a major change in how people communicate.”
Until now, it has been widely acknowledged that porn is the top use of the Web, practically since the Internet moved beyond the academic and military spheres. Not that it has gone away, but to learn that social networking has now overtaken porn is big. Really big.
Tancer’s findings demonstrate that Web 2.0 is a clear phenomenon that hits on a key element in human behavior. Finally tools and platforms have developed and now allow people to connect on a human level. Using the Internet to connect socially – and not just to communicate – has tapped into a basic human need, our need to feel that we are part of a community. Being connected with one another now transcends time and place.
Here’s the key: People take things that they find to be successful in their personal life and apply them to work. The opportunity now is to bring the power of communities into the workplace. Some companies are taking existing approaches and adapting them to the workplace. This is one path and some will undoubtedly stick.
I see, however, a new opportunity to take the lessons of Web 2.0 and apply them to make us all more effective at work. With innovative approaches that target real business problems, social networks can transform how people work.
Posted by Monica Enand 