The New Collaborators

Web 2.0 introduced a read/write Web, a new paradigm where hosts and participants could contribute to a more collaborative Web landscape and experience. But it’s not the tools that make Web 2.0 or New PR what it is today; it’s clearly the many people who collaborate and share information every day in their communities and who demonstrate how the latest tools can facilitate conversations and foster relationships across the Web. Web 2.0 introduced the Social Web, which is about people communicating with each other using the tools that reach their respective online communities. Online conversations and the discovery, creation, and sharing of content is the foundation for Web 2.0, Social Media, and New PR. New PR’s goal is to understand the communities of people we want to reach and how to engage them in conversations without marketing at them.

The Social Web induced the realization by smart companies that the people and respective brands that “let go” and share control of how messages and communications are received and perceived, create and foster a more active and respected community through communication and the participation in direct conversations with their peers and customers. In a Web 2.0 world, “command and control communication,” which is dictated and prescripted communication, has diminished because companies are realizing that this type of communication no longer belongs in today’s marketplace. In this “new world,” companies augment and “let go” of the push and broadcast mechanisms associated with traditional marketing and message control, enabling customers to internalize information and, in turn, share their reaction and interpretation.