261 Chapter 16 Augment Your Business Reality with New Age Web Tools Lukas Ritzel IMI University Centre, Switzerland ABSTRACT When Berners Lee invented the Internet, he for sure could not have imagined the beast he unleashed. Today, some years later, the Internet is the single most important tool of communication, leisure, and information gathering. With Web 2.0 and social networks becoming more and more mainstream, we must ask the question about what more is about to come. If ever we will look back and define the current moments in 2010 as Web 3.0, it will for sure be the talk of touch screens, 3D technologies, and most of all, the rise of Augmented Reality (AR). This more sensory Internet leads to an entirely new experience of bridging the off-line with the on-line world. It makes the use more human and easier to use because it simulates various aspects of needs and activities we would demand and use even if we were not computer freaks. This chapter talks about AR and its applications and the way it can change our lives and businesses with the support of cyberspace. INTRODUCTION It was not so long ago that organizations viewed the web as a source of information overload or as a tool for those interested in passive game playing. Today organizations around the world realize that these conceptualizations were erroneous. On DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-581-0.ch016 the contrary, there is more creativity and active exchange of knowledge and information going on because of the web than ever before. The implications of Web 3.0 to organizational governance is the subject of this chapter where the author will look in detail at new trends and discuss some of the implications they will have on society and on the way we conduct business. In much the same way as wikis, Twitter, Facebook, Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Augment Your Business Reality with New Age Web Tools Second Life, and other Web 2.0 applications have been welcomed by new generations until they became mainstream and part of our lives; Web 3.0 technologies will have a similar impact on the future. No change is all good or all bad, and critics should be heard because they are the ones enabling us to see the downsides, driving all stakeholders to strive towards further changes. Evolution is a test -and- run approach that makes us move in a ‘Z’ shape between boundaries set by extremes. The lesser the critics are listened to, the farther – and the more dangerous – the extremes (ex: dot.com crash). The more the businesses and thinkers listen to those critics; the sooner the course-corrections can be applied. Isabelle Michelet, French thinker, and author, wrote to me in an email dated Dec 12 2009. “Yes, change is wide and deep and irreversible. But a lot of what is seen today looks like the rather extremist frenzy of novelty. For sure many adjustments will be made to find a new balance, and only when this new balance is found will we be able to say that we have really entered a mature Cybernetic Era.”1 This chapter focuses on the impact of change on business organizations, the way organizations need to change their business models and management paradigms to adjust to and make the best of these changes. The key question therefore is when and how should organizations change their ways? The next section builds the necessary background to understand the meaning and evolution of web from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0. were three of the most important aspects of a Web 1.0 world. Still today, most web content is still only Web 1.0 style. Corporate Websites are a dominant feature of today’s Internet. One of the phenomenon which resulted from Web 1.0 was information overflow. But Web 1.0 has already had a huge impact on changing some aspects of how business has been done. Ecommerce opened up new markets and by using the internet channel made it available to reach anybody and anywhere. eBay and Amazon were among the first to profit from this new era. Amazon for example turned the publishing industry upside down bringing (e)books into the mainstream by killing retailer business. A further example is the Google ‘pay per click’ business model which reinvented marketing, making it much more targeted and measurable. Web 1.0 also provoked a rethinking of Human Resources Management (HRM). Suddenly new competencies were in demand and therefore new job titles became part of the average organization chart. On the wish lists of managers were job titles such as: PPC Salesman, Web Strategist, Googler, Virtual Trainer and Voice Over the Internet Recruiter. But then the Internet started to change. Users became more active, Prosumers (mix of Producers and Consumers) were ready to emerge. Inclusion replaced the passive consumption of the huge information available on the Web. BACKGROUND The term Web 2.0 was coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci in her article, “Fragmented Future” (DiNucci, 1999). But the term is closely associated with Tim O’Reilly because of the O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004 (Battele and O’Reilly, 2004). Some still argue that it is just a buzzword, while others see it as the start of a new web revolution. The most striking feature of Web 2.0 lies in user provided content and therefore the empowering of users through sharing, collabo- Definitions of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 & Web 3.0 Web 1.0 The whole content is published on the web in a static manner. Hyperlinking web-pages, bookmarking and HTML language used for all websites 262 Web 2.0 19 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/chapter/augment-your-business-realitynew/54059?camid=4v1 This title is available in e-Book Collection, Business-Technology-Solution, Knowledge Management e-Book Collection, Collaborative and Virtual Work e-Book Collection, Business, Administration, and Management e-Book Collection, Business and Management e-Book Collection, e-Book Collection Select, e-Book Collection Select, e-Book Collection Select, Business Knowledge Solutions e-Book Collection, e-Book Collection. 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