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Even as entrepreneurs wrestle with Web 2.0, it’s time to look ahead at the next generation of online tools and techniques. In this three-part series, bMighty takes a look at where we’ve come from and where we’re headed.

For well over a decade now, the Web, the Internet on which it rides and the various software devices and programs that make it work have been evolving so rapidly–creating so many business opportunities and challenges–that many small and mid-sized businesses have been busy just hanging on.

The good news: Things aren’t going to slow down. The challenging news: Things really aren’t going to slow down. And while envisaging all the incarnations of these technologies is all but impossible, entrepreneurs would be wise to try to anticipate the changes that could truly boost (or upend) their businesses.

Part 1: Where We’ve Been And Where We Are

It’s a mistake to try to label the Web with iterations: Web 1.0, Web 1.4, Web 2.0 and so forth. The Web is too ubiquitous, too constantly in flux, too flexible, too all-things-for-all-people-and-businesses to be comfortably categorized.

Part 2: The Next Web

The essence of the Web for business is the same as the essence of every business undertaking: communication, content, transaction, resolution, and mutual benefit.

For some time now, and from now on, content will be the most essential element. Whether it’s a product description or catalog entry, a price and specifications negotiation, an e-mail dialogue, a Web-based consultancy or Web-marketed hard goods, the ability of your business to deliver the appropriate content to the appropriate recipients is now the name of the business game.

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(Fortune) — Remember where electronic mail was 15 years ago? If you didn’t already have an e-mail address, you probably knew someone who did. And if you were sending and receiving e-mail, you’d probably discovered that it could be a game-changing business tool.

That’s roughly where the services known collectively as Web 2.0 are today. These are sometimes defined as web activities that get more valuable the more people use them.

Social networks like MySpace and Facebook are the most familiar examples, but new Web 2.0 companies you’ve never heard of emerge almost daily, creating what is, in effect, a continuous stream of interlinked data, some of which may be about your company, your business contacts, or even about you.

How can you get started? We surveyed some executives who use Web 2.0 services every day and came up with a few suggestions.

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\\ tags: Business, Web

Listening to Blogads founder Henry Copeland’s “Worst Ten Social Media Campaigns of 2007” panel at this year’s SXSW Interactive Festival, I realized that most of the worst could have been among the best campaigns if they’d been thought through from a social perspective. I say “most” because there were a couple that were simply wrong; nothing, short of not doing them, would have made a difference. For the others, some social savvy would have paid big dividends.

Going forward, discovering how the campaigns failed isn’t useful. Charlotte Selles, panelist and global brand manager for Jim Beam, put it this way: “Given a plainly wrong choice upfront, there isn’t a lot to learn in measuring what happened after that.” She suggested instead looking at why they failed, getting clear about exactly what “wrong choice” was made and taking care not to repeat it. There were three specific errors leading to failure for these campaigns:

• Lack of transparency. In this bucket are campaigns like Cisco’s “Human Network” Wikipedia entry and both HP’s and Wal-Mart’s paid blogging programs.

• Poor execution. Here we find Agency.com’s Subway sandwich pitch, a Molson campaign, and Vespa’s Vespaway blog.

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The social element of shopping is manifesting in many ways online, providing marketers with opportunities — and challenges. NetPlus Marketing’s president describes the environment.

The thrill of the deal, spreading the word, networking with birds of your feather, getting the scoop — social shopping has all of the trappings, joys and innuendos that fuel commerce.

In 2008, U.S. advertisers are expected to spend nearly $1.6 billion — up 69 percent from the $920 million they will have spent in 2007, according to the report, “Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending and Usage.”  In four years, U.S. ad spend on social-networking sites is expected to reach $2.7 billion.

Social commerce has arrived….so pay attention
Simply put, social commerce is about customers having the means to interact with one another in order to make better buying decisions.

The social aspects of shopping have long been an integral part of our culture first institutionalized and marketed perhaps with the original Tupperware Home Party in 1948. Asking someone where she got that great bag, hearing about the latest sale from a friend or socializing at the mall are all integral parts of our consumer culture.

The advent of ecommerce and, more specifically, word-of-mouth vehicles such as reviews on shopping sites and other online platforms is a bold extension of the power of word of mouth and the social joys that accompany shopping. New media communications now provide an even broader, extensible platform to further ignite the social aspect of shopping.

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\\ tags: shopping, social shopping

48% of online retailers say they their chargebacks for fraudulent purchase transactions is less than 0.1% of sales, matching the card-present chargeback rate experienced in physical stores, the Merchant Risk Council reports in its Fifth Annual Survey.

But criminals continue to pose an increasing challenge for merchants, and one-third of retailers experienced a fraud spike within the past 12 months that increase their fraud rate by 100% or more, the study says.

The problem for these merchants is that they fail to take steps to stay ahead of criminals who figured out how to get by merchants’ security measures, says Julie Fergerson, vice president of emerging technologies at security company Debix Inc. and a member of the board of the Merchant Risk Council. “Many retailers are aware of and have deployed new security technology and techniques, but the devil is in the details,” Fergerson says. “Once a month, somebody at a retailer should be looking at overall data and trends, and making sure everything is good,” she says.

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\\ tags: payment

As in the offline world, consumers are shifting from credit to debit payment online, with debit transaction volume expected to surpass credit transactions online by 2007. That has important implications for online merchants and card issuers, according to a new report from Jupiter Research, “U.S. Online payments Forecast, 2005 to 2010.”

Offline, consumers are moving toward debit vs. credit card use as a substitute for using checks. Also driving growth are consumers’ increasing familiarity and comfort level with this payment option, and that fact that debit cards don`t carry finance charges as credit cards do, according to Jupiter.

Offline, a signature is required to authorize a debit transaction – an option that doesn’t exist online. PIN debit transactions, another means of user authentication aren’t typically used online due to security concerns, and security concerns also have so far limited the growth of PIN-less debit transactions.

As a result of those concerns, the predicted increase in the use of debit cards online means that online merchants must be even more rigorous about fraud and risk management, Jupiter analyst Edward Kountz notes. Merchants should increase their use of automated fraud management tools and consider bankcard associations’ online second-level authentication programs, so far little used.

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If retail marketers are going to capture the loyalty of the next generation of spenders, they’re going to have to get hip to the new Web, according to a report from Forrester Research.

“The 73 million people under the age of 18 in the U.S. represent one thing to marketers and sellers: the next generation of spenders,” wrote Forrester analyst Carrie A. Johnson in the report, a copy of which was obtained by E-Commerce Times.

“But those marketers are more ‘American Bandstand’ than ‘American Idol,’ making it hard to understand this connected, gadget-grabbing group,” Johnson added.

Always Online

Young shoppers break into two distinct age groups, the report said, under 18 and 18 to 21 years old. While the over 18 crowd has more money to spend — US$193 a month, compared to $76 — both market segments have one thing in common.

“They’re always online,” Forrester reported. “The majority of both groups have broadband at home and go online daily. The online behavior of older teens illustrates that this is a generation that has hardly known life without the Web.”

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With advances in modern PCB technology, it has become more challenging to optimize test-and-inspection strategies to balance the needs of quality, throughput, and cost. A significant number of today’s designs cannot achieve required quality based on traditional in-circuit test (ICT) alone. Reduced bed-of-nails accessibility places more emphasis on design for test (DfT) and use of complementary process verification techniques. All PCB manufacturers create defects in their processes; with intelligent implementation of DfT practices, these defects can be caught and addressed in a timely manner.

Defects-per-board and Yield
It is possible to estimate a PCB’s process yield using historical defects per million opportunities (DPMO) data for the components specified on the bill of materials (BOM). DPMO is a normalized assessment of the defects generated in the PCB manufacturing process. The estimated PCB defects per board is the sum of individual DPMO numbers associated with all the components fitted to the board, divided by 1,000,000.

The DPMO values for each component may consist of an element that is associated with the component and another part that is associated with each pin of the component. Alternatively there may just be an overall figure that considers the total DPMO contribution of the component.

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In recent years, long-ignored thermal issues have been wreaking havoc on electronic systems’ reliability. Anyone who has opened a computer case and seen the massive, often elaborate heatsinks attached to microprocessors knows how severe thermal issues can be. And while applying a heatsink is an effective way to cool a microprocessor, a proactive approach, applying various methodologies, is the only solution for successfully designing complex electronic systems to meet thermal requirements.

ICs account for the greatest amount of power dissipated on a PCB electronic design. Board designers are plagued with trying to distribute power throughout the PCB for a steadily increasing number of voltages, and concerns over heat generated by wide traces have also increased. However, such issues are a distant concern compared to the power dissipated by the ICs on the board. For that reason, proactive thermal planning must begin with the package.

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