Defining Web 2.0 – Part 1: We're Talking Back

“Web 2.0” is a buzzword used all over the place these days. So what does it mean? Web 2.0 actually means a lot of different things and it means different things to different people. This is the first of a multi-part series attempting to define Web 2.0. Follow my blog at http://www.drivingsales.com/blog/mwatson/ for future posts.

Part 1 - “We're Talking Back”

One definition of Web 2.0 is the ability for everyday people to change the Internet.

A few years ago the Internet was mostly created by businesses for shopping, news, travel, research, forums and other important things. The Internet was largely a “read only” collection of information where everyday people had no input.

Today, a very large percentage of the content on the Internet was created by everyday people. Wikipedia, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and dozens of other websites are all based on content created by every day people. We now have the ability to create our own web pages (ex. MySpace & blogs) and make our mark on the Internet. You could say that Web 2.0 gave us our freedom of speech online.

So how did we get here? Well... it didn't happen over night.

In 1996 web communities like Geocities became common. They allowed users to create their own websites. By the end of 1997 Geocities had 1 million users and was the 5^th most popular website on the Internet. Geocities was eventually purchased by Yahoo and still lives on today as a simply way to create your own website, including a blog.

Blogs aren't really that new either. A web blog, as a concept of online commentary or online diaries started in 1993. Although the term “blog” didn't come around until 1999. However, blogging didn't become mainstream until 2004. I created my first blog in 2003... and it still exists today.

Web 2.0 can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. To me, one of the things it means is we have the ability to create the content of the Internet.

We're Talking Back.

Matt Watson
Chief Technical Officer
VinSolutions

Digital Documents - How do I email my delivery documents to a customer?

Anyone who uses an automotive CRM that prints on plain paper via a laser printer can probably already create digital documents today. Most people probably just don't know how to.

If you're using pre-printed forms, then you can't create digital docs from those of course. (As a side note, you might consider switching to forms printed via a laser printer to save yourself some money.)

So how do you use your current CRM to create "digital documents" you can email to a customer?

Easily! If you can print the form, you can create a digital copy. If your CRM exports the forms to a PDF to print, well then simply click the save button and email the files. If not, then you can install a utility like Adobe (not reader edition) or dopdf (there are other products like this) to print to a PDF that can then be saved and emailed.

So the key is... any document that can be printed on a laser printer can be printed to a PDF and emailed, even if it isn't a PDF (using programs like Adobe, MS Office, dopdf and others). Now of course that involves more steps than maybe just a "email to customer" button.

Of course there are some CRM vendors that have the nifty "email to customer" functionality built in. I have also seen some companies that tout "digital documents" as a product. To me it just seems like a basic ILM/CRM/Desking function, not really a product in itself... maybe I'm wrong on that point?

You could also use the email functionality to email the documents to someone within the dealership or to a 3rd party vendor. Like emailing a book out sheet to the bank, or a desk manager emailing a salesperson a purchase proposal.

Matt Watson

VinSolutions