Last month Forrester Research predicted that over the next 5 years ‘Enterprise 2.0’ will grow to something like a $4.6 billion industry. It‘s also predicted that this year alone, $746 million will be spent on Web 2.0 technologies for firms of 1000 or more employees.

These numbers are incredible.

And so is this: the Association for Information and Image Management recently polled 400 businesses regarding their participation in the Enterprise 2.0 movement. 44% of those polled reported that such technologies are either ‘imperative’ or of ‘significant importance’ to their businesses, despite some 74% claiming to have a vague understanding of the concept.

This is where I come in. You will see the words ’Enterprise’ on our site, and being a Web 2.0 company implies that our Enterprise services are thus ’Enterprise 2.0’. Fun! But what does it mean? Here’s where I’d can give a little definition- because you are certain to come across it again.

I like Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee’s definition of Enterprise 2.0 as the “use of emergent social software platforms (like wikis, blogs, RSS, social networking tools and mashups) within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.”

Nice. Ok, so when you use Box services and applications with co-workers, you’re actively engaged the Enterprise 2.0 trend- and better for it, I hear it’s the way of the web…

Happy enterprising,

Kendra

In the interest of staying up on Box concepts and terms- it’s time to check out a second roundtable discussion on ‘cloud computing’. We are lucky enough to have several experts in the field in our office, and this installment comes courtesy of Jim Herbold, VP of Sales and GM of Box Enterprise. 

Click Here to listen to the discussion

The lineup includes a conversation about Andy Kessler’s article ’The War for the Web’, an overview of several new ‘cloud’ companies and products and great interviews with Dmitri Joukovski and Ken Crandall of Zmanda and Jeff Barr of Amazon.

Many of these ideas are gaining ground in mainstream media- so listen and enjoy. And of course, if you have any thoughts/tips/hints/comments on the subject, let us know!

-Kendra

 Are you addicted to your work email?

Most of you are sitting right there at your desk nodding yes- I know because I’m the same way. And there are more and more of us all the time who can’t so much as take a nice evening stroll through the neighborhood, go grab a dinner or a drink with a friend or attend our kids soccer games without thumbing through our BlackBerry messages over and over. Even if we know that there are no new messages.

More annoying yet is when I look at my email and see attachment upon attachment with a different version of the SAME document (which would never happen here at Box… HUGE bonus). It‘s a familiar situation, I’m sure- you send your document to the team to make sure everyone sees it and has the chance to chime in with their thoughts and edits. Good job, you are a team player. But now you have an inbox with 6 different versions of the same file and it’s up to you to compile and make the appropriate changes. I don’t know you well, but I’m fairly certain that is not the best use of your time.

Don’t get me wrong here- I have always found that the end result of group work is usually better for it. But in today’s world, it’s just silly to be jumping through these version-control hoops when you just don‘t have to.

It’s online collaboration- and everyone’s doing it. Changing people’s habits is hard, sure. But we’re here for you every step of the way.

So welcome back from your long weekend, now start breaking those bad habits…

Cheers,

Kendra

We’ve made a handful of improvements in your Box this evening…

* Comments on your files
Now you can comment on your files- even those that have been shared in collaboration folders. A perfect way to add any notes, notify of changes, or chat about a file with others. Soon you’ll be able to expose these comments on files themselves, letting you collect feedback on the files you share.

* List view now rocks
In the past, our list view has really been aimed at power-users wanting better visibility into their files - now we’re hoping everyone will find it useful! We’ve included new links in list view like “Options,” “Share,” and “Comments” that will expand more options and actions to take. For now, a lot of these functions are the same that can be found by right-clicking a file- but in the case of Sharing and Comments, you’ll see new functionality only available in the expand section.

* New search location, better usability
As you start adding more files, or working with groups of people with different organization methods than your own, the search tool becomes extremely important. So we’ve repositioned the search box into the header instead of as a collapsed option. Furthermore, when you search, your files will be highlighted with the relevant text that you searched for.

* Multilingual Help
In a first step towards full-site localization, we will be offering localized help to help expand Box to as many audiences as possible. Being a completely web-based service means we’re available anywhere in the world, and we want to ensure everyone has the best experience no matter where they reside.

I’ve been busy introducing myself around here all week as the newest Box blogger, so I think it’s time to make good on that claim.

Hi! I’m Kendra- the new Box Community Manager. I’m psyched about joining the team, and to jump in and get going. I’ve spent the past few days researching and reading about our members, bloggers, partners, our company’s past and (phew!) future- all important stuff, to be certain.

But now I’m ready to introduce myself to all of you… and remind you to drop me a note anytime if you have feedback, ideas, blog topics, tips, tricks or just want to say hi.

I’m excited to be the person here that gets to tell you about product updates, feature releases, partnership announcements and industry news, among other things.

Looking forward to bringing you all-things-Box,

Kendra

We’ll begin testing Web Docs for 100,000 users on Box this evening. We’ve randomly selected this group of users to have access to our new web-based document creation and sharing functionality. Once we get enough feedback from the initial usage, and kinks worked out of the system, we’ll roll the OpenBox-powered service to all Box users. Here’s a sample embedded Web Document: