Open source is an Internet phenomenon, yet most open source companies do not effectively leverage the ‘Net to drive their businesses. "Social production," "collaboration," and "user-generated content" are intrinsic to open source code development projects, but underdeveloped on open source company web sites. These "Web 2.0" capabilities are considered the central online marketing mechanisms at Amazon, eBay, CNET, CDW, and many other ecommerce sites for both B2C and B2B.

Which open source companies are deploying participatory web experiences that can attract and keep users and customers at each stage of the consideration cycle? Which are making online strategy a truly leveraged part of their business models in moving users from free to fee? What are some of the best practices? What are the biggest gaps or challenges?

Among others, this session will answer the following questions:

• What percentage of these leaders’ revenues is affected by the Web?
• What are these companies doing to grow and fuel open source communities?
• How do these companies pull customer data and leverage it to their customers' (and, hence, the vendors’) advantage?
• What types of online information draw the best response, and convert best to sales?
• Who downloads software, and how do these user demographics change the way these companies structure their websites?
• Which software tools (forums, bug tracking, IM, etc.) do these companies make available online, and to what effect?

An open source company without a successful online strategy seriously handicaps itself.  This session will help vendors understand how the best-run open source companies structure their web activities.