Productivity hits all time low as Web 2.0 undermines business

EVIL WEB application terrorists are celebrating today, as they've now created the critical mass of 'obligatory' web 2.0 applications needed to bring UK businesses grinding to a halt.

With the launch of BT Tradespace - a must have social networking application for small businesses - all companies are now obliged to spend their entire time checking emails, updating blogs, patching their MySpace entries and undergoing cyber chores. They've been mesmerised into believing this electronic red tape is a marketing must have.

"We want to cripple the economy of the infidels," said a spokesman for Al Qaeda, "but never in our wildest dreams would we have thought of web 2.0."

Bit by bit, ironically-named 'business solution' providers have lured unwittingly SMEs into their web of electronic red tape, where they soon become paralysed.

Shockingly, the process has been in place since the 90s, when phone companies insisted we should all update our phone messages every day, or risk losing customers. The threat of losing business has been effectively deployed ever since, with each new layer of so called customer facing technology.

Soon afterwards, it was the slogan on your fax machine that needed constant attention. Then the music.

But a suffocating atmosphere of fear was only really created when a more extreme group of 'solution providers' evolved. A group calling themselves web 2.0 invented a myriad of 'channels to market', the code name for pointless activities that keep you tied to a chair and staring at a screen, rather than talking to customers.

Now, in the name of branding, gullible SMEs have been lured into a variety of pointless exercises. Tiresome tasks like updating phone messages, call forwarding instructions and picking up endless lost calls have been replaced by more potent energy sappers. “Under the guise of saving 10p a day, we've got businesses farting around with their Skype and Vonage settings all day,” said one solutions provider.

But the real killer has been anti social networking. "I start my day by updating my blog," said one simpleton. "That always takes me longer than I thought. Then it's the company blog. Then I've got to find links. Then I might update the company web site. And download whatever patches the IT industry instructs me to," he said.

After lunch, the simpleton then starts work on his podcast - another obligation for all SMEs - followed by a zany video for Youtube, not forgetting to read and reply to every message that generates. Next it's the WAP site that'll need attention. That's if someone hasn't interrupted his train of thought with a funny viral email, or a session trading insults on instance messaging.

Of course, in order for any of these sites to have a chance of being noticed, the simpleton will have to spend a few hours a day on search engine optimisation.

Though most of the day will have gone by now, there would still be an hour or so for a bit of work to be done.

Until now, that is, because BT - one of the best solution providers in the UK- has introduced BT Tradespace, a new service that brings the advantages of social networking to businesses. Now there really aren't enough hours in the day for customers.

According to Ivan Croxford, head of marketing development at BT Business, businesses must think about getting BT Tradespace if they really want to compete!

"Now my entire day is taken up with bloody technology," said one CEO of a Croydon based bed and breakfast, "still, in one respect they have saved me time. I haven't got much to declare to the tax man at the end of the year." µ