Social presence theory (Short, et al. 1976) is a seminal theory of the social effects of communication technology. Its main concern is with telephony and telephone conferencing (the research was sponsored by the British Post Office, now British Telecom). It argues that the social impact of a communication medium depend on the social presence it allows communicators to have. Social presence is defined as a property of the medium itself: the degree of acoustic, visual, and physical contact that it allows. The theory assumes that more contact will increase the key components of "presence": greater intimacy, immediacy, warmth and inter-personal rapport. As a consequence of social presence, social influence is expected to increase. In the case of communication technology, the assumption is that more text-based forms of interaction (e-mail, instant messaging) are less social, and therefore less conducive to social influence.

“I would rather have 10 videos of good content but average production quality than one video of good content and good production quality — and given the cost of professional video, that 10-to-1 ratio is about what you can get for the same amount of money.”

Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of many, translating to a huge competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility.