IT decision makers in Asia are not in a hurry to implement Web 2.0 in their business, despite the increasing popularity of tools such as wikis and blogs.

In ZDNet Asia's IT priorities survey, about 14 percent of respondents did not think the Web 2.0 applications mentioned in the survey were important for their business, while a 19.7 percent had either not adopted or had no intention to adopt the tools.

Graeme Philipson, an independent IT industry analyst commissioned by ZDNet Asia to analyze the survey results, said: "Many of these technologies are in their infancy, and the level of interest means that many organizations are considering the use of Web 2.0 technologies but waiting for the market to mature."

Blogs garnered the most number of votes (22.9 percent) in terms of importance, followed by wikis (20.1 percent), podcasts/video casts (19.6 percent), and social networking sites like MySpace (16.2 percent).

However, across the board, a lower percentage of respondents said they had adopted or planned to adopt the tools. For example, 22.9 percent said blogs were important, but only 18.5 percent said they planned to adopt the online tool.

Industry observers whom ZDNet Asia spoke to were not surprised with these findings.

John Brand, director of analyst firm Hydrasight, said: "While everyone talks about the success and benefit of these new technologies, very few people tend to talk about the risks. Most organizations, in our experience, adopt a wait-and-see approach to the introduction of any new technology based on unacceptable cost and risk."

According to Brand, some organizations trial or roll out a new technology "for publicity purposes, or to pitch themselves to prospective employees and customers as being cutting-edge".

"The fact is, the majority of new technology solutions are abandoned by organizations over the short- to mid-term, if they can't be relatively quickly institutionalized within day-to-day business operations," he added.

Allan Bell, Asia-Pacific marketing director of security company McAfee, said security may be a reason for the low level of interest in adopting Web 2.0 tools.

"Properly managed, blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networking can improve communication with customers, but improperly managed, they can pose security or reputation risks for companies," Bell said.

Greg Dixon, Cisco Systems' IT director for Asia-Pacific and Japan, agreed that the decision-making process for Web 2.0 technologies is no different from the evaluation of other business decisions.

Dixon noted: "We don't see anything unusual about Web 2.0 adoption from any other new business capability as it comes to market. There are early adopters who see, and rapidly seize, an opportunity in order to yield the early benefits that add to competitive advantage."