Though early adoption was primarily in the consumer space, Web 2.0 applications - including wikis, blogs, shared workspaces, and social computing - are infiltrating businesses, as well.

Business and IT leaders still are trying to develop a value assessment specific to Web 2.0. One of the key questions is: “How can we use this technology to further business objectives, especially revenue generation?” This isn’t a straight-forward assessment, and as a result, we have seen many adopting Web 2.0 technology based on the expectation of future benefits or soft productivity benefits.

And not too surprisingly, teleworking is one of the key drivers behind business adoption of Web 2.0 applications. Companies with formal teleworking policies - ie, those who take telecommuting seriously - are more likely to use Web 2.0 applications. Why? They understand the value of using collaborative technologies to foster a “virtual” culture in an otherwise-distributed organization.

In Nemertes’ Unified Communications & Collaboration research, we found correlations between companies who had teleworking policies and those using Web 2.0 applications. Wiki use increases when there is a telework policy (57.1% vs. 43.5% for those without a policy), as does blog adoption (40.7% vs. 39.1% for those without a policy). Shared workspace also increases (64.3% vs. 57.4% for those without a policy). Even social networking, including sites such as Facebook and Linked In, is higher for those with policies (32.1% for those with a policy vs. 15.2% for those without).

Bottom line: Web 2.0 applications play a key role in the capabilities available to teleworking employees. As teleworkers use these applications, they will not stop at the boundaries of the home office, branch office, regional office, or headquarters. They will continue to infiltrate the entire organization, led in large part by a growing field of teleworkers.

Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click  here for the newsletter archive.