At this very moment (if we are following the schedule) I am presenting a few glimpes from a fresh survey regarding web trends in Sweden. Earlier this month Web Service Award (WSA) surveyed randomly selected customers with the purpose of assessing how managers responsible for web sites consider the site’s service quality from the visitors perspective. Of the 929 managers who received the web based questionaire 424 responded (45%). The web sites in question are for public use and published by (non-)government organisations as well as commercial enterprises, including e-businesses.
Part of the survey, which also was conducted in 2005 and 2006, concerns web technology trends. For around 10 named, but not described, technologies (e.g. blogging) the managers were asked to indicate their knowledge (none to very well). Those who had at least some knowledge about a particular technology were also asked how their organisations considers it (not interesting to implemented and evaluated). The questions concerns use of the tools at the respondents web site, not the managers personal use.
Here is a brief summary from my personal analysis of the data and later tonight I will publish my slides from the gig. Please note, it is a quick-and-dirty analysis with possible errors. The full report, which also compares the managers responses on service quality with those from actual web visitors, will soon be available upon request from WSA (in Swedish I guess). Disclaimer: I have adviced WSA on what they should survey about, I am in the WSA jury, and I moderate their awards event.
Communities is not so very popular. Unfortunately the question about knowledge of communities as a web technology disappeared this year. But 344 respondents answered on how they considered the use of communitites. 17% said not interesting, 42% relatively low priority, 23% are closely monitoring the development, 11% have actual plans to implement, 3% have implemented but not evaluated, and 4% have implemented and evaluated communitites.
Blogging is well known, but not popular to use. 93% had at least some knowledge. The trend from 2005 is strong knowledge improvement, but still less than 50% answers ”know very well”. The organisations seems to give blogging some priority and the trend is increased implementation, even though more than 50% of those who know about blogging overlooks blogging, i.e. answers not interesting or give it relative low priority.
RSS is well known, fairly prioritized and undergo implementation. 81% had at least some knowledge, hence the awareness is good and have been increasing since 2005 when 50% knew nothing about it. RSS seems to be more popular to use than blogging and over 40% of those who know about RSS have implemented it. Less than 10% find it not interesting.
Wiki is known, but relatively ignored. 70% had at least some knowlededge, up from less than 30% two years ago. Still virtually none of the organisations had implemented wikis and close to 67% found it not interesting or gave it low priority. Since 2005 the interest to closely monitor the development (27%) has more than doubled (from 12%).
Tagging is known, but gets low priority from but a few. 69% had at least some knowledge and the trend is increased understanding from 2005. Still almost 48% of those who know about tagging more or less overlooks it and around 20% will, or have, implemented it.
Web 2.0 is known and monitored, yet not very implemented. 67% had at least some knowledge, up strong from 30% in 2005. Interestingly enough 56% responded that they knew about Web 2.0 fairly or very well. After all, it is controversial and vague concept. Nevertheless of those who know about Web 2.0 few (5%) had implemented it, but 25% had actual plans for implementation.
VOIP is still not more than known. 67% had at least some knowledge. The trend from 2005 is deeper knowledge rather than more wide spread, as fairly to very well has risen from 25% to 43%. Still virtually no one who knows about VOIP have implemented it. And VOIP is more or less overlooked with the exception of the 15% who closely monitors the development.
Podcasting is becoming more known, but ignored. 67% had at least some knowledge, slightly up from 50% in 2005. Still the majority (72%) of those who knows about podcasting finds it uninteresing or gives it low priority. Around 10% plan to, or have, implemented podcasts.
Widgets/gadgets is barely known and ignored. 52% had at least some knowledge, and this question was new with the 2007 survey. Close to 60% of those who know about widgets/gadgets overlooks them, no one has evaluated it and less than 14% plans to, or have, implmented widgets.
Affiliation program is not so known and not so interesting. 37% had at least some knowledge, slightly up from 28% in 2005. Of those who know about affiliation programs 67% overlooks it and 10% have implemented it. Note, only 35% of the surveyed web sites have marketing or e-business purposes.
Mashups mostly unknown, gets low priority or is monitored. Only 32% had at least some knowledge and this question was new in the 2007 survey. Of those 7% hade very good knowledge and 13% fairly good. 5% of those who knows about mashups have actually implemented it, and close to 50% more or less overlooks mashups. Still, around 40% are closely following the mashup development.
Of course all the above would be interesting to discuss further. I squeezed writing this entry into my schedule with no time for reflections. But after its publication we can all converse about reasons and meanings…do you want to?