Report

David Schuff, Joseph A. DeLuca, Brian W. Hamilton

November 2009

Blogging is an increasingly popular tool for organizations to communicate with their employees, customers, and the general public. It is unique in its support for two-way communication and the creation of reader-generated content. This report presents the “state of the art” in corporate blogging through a multi-industry study analyzing the message, audience, and content of 25 organizations’ blogs. We found company-created blogs enable organizations to create self-sustaining communities of customers that both consume and contribute content. Best practices for creating these communities are discussed and illustrated. We also present guidelines for creating internally-focused blogs, such as those intended to foster communication with employees.

Users are more likely to be regular readers of the blog if they contribute comments, and the unique content they generate attracts additional readers.

 

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© 2011 The IBIT Report, Institute for Business and Information Technology, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. All rights reserved. ISSN 1938-1271.

Julia Plekhanova

September 2009

Web frameworks provide a golden mean between building an application from scratch and using an out-of-the-box content management system (CMS). This report focuses on three leading open source web development frameworks: Django, Ruby on Rails and CakePHP. All three frameworks have similar architectures and claim to have similar characteristics, such as greatly enhanced productivity and code re-use. This report provides a methodology to evaluate each framework. The methodology, criteria, and weights provided in this report are generic and comprehensive. Each organization should adapt the methodology of this report to its own unique context.

Web development frameworks are influenced by a large number of constantly evolving factors, including social, perceptual, and contextual forces that do not neatly fit into a technical evaluation.

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© 2011 The IBIT Report, Institute for Business and Information Technology, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. All rights reserved. ISSN 1938-1271.

Sunil Wattal, David Schuff, Munir Mandviwalla

November 2008

Will the Internet change the landscape of presidential politics? In this report, we show that Blogs had a significant impact on Gallup polls in the 2008 presidential campaign. YouTube and MySpace were beneficial to less known candidates. We discuss how the Internet can change the nature of competition in politics and replace or complement traditional media.

The impact of blogs is a game changing result and could change the nature of politics

 

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© 2011 The IBIT Report, Institute for Business and Information Technology, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. All rights reserved. ISSN 1938-1271.

 

Munir Mandviwalla, Abhijit Jain, and Paul Weinberg

August 2008

Why was Google, an internet search provider, so interested in the results of the FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction? The Wireless 1.0 report provides a model that organizations can use to understand the importance of wireless and develop new capabilities and innovative new products and services. This report is a first attempt to treat the current set of wireless technologies as an integrated concept. We refer to this state of wireless development as Wireless 1.0 and present an integrated managerial model that includes Wi-Fi, WiMAX, RFID, and Bluetooth. A new perspective is needed for managers because wireless has the potential to disrupt existing business operations and models and also to create new forms of business opportunities and industries.

Wireless 1.0 provides a model that organizations can apply to develop new capabilities and innovative new products and services.

 

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© 2011 The IBIT Report, Institute for Business and Information Technology, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. All rights reserved. ISSN 1938-1271.

Munir Mandviwalla, Pradeep Racherla, Sunil Wattal

July 2008

The technologies related to social computing and networking such as MySpace, Face-book, Digg, collaborative wikis, interactive blogs, and even Second Life are now an established part of the consumer consciousness. Many observers have linked social networking to concepts such as flatness, openness, peer recommendation, and innovation enablement. Yet, the business role and impact of these concepts and associated technologies is unclear. The goal of this report is to provide a snapshot of the organizational adoption, usage, benefits, and risks associated with social computing. The report is based on interviews with business leaders; evaluation of specific tools; a symposium and focus group, and a survey on adoption.

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© 2011 The IBIT Report, Institute for Business and Information Technology, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. All rights reserved. ISSN 1938-1271.