What Is Web 2.0 (summarize)

What Is Web 2.0

Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software

by Tim O'Reilly (09/30/2005)

Web 2.0 can be visualized as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core. (see Fig.1)

Fig.1. Meme Map of Web 2.0 that was developed during FOO Camp (2005)

To identify one application or approach as "Web 1.0" and another as "Web 2.0": tease out the principles that are demonstrated in one way or another by the success stories of web 1.0 and by the most interesting of the new applications, which is:

1. The Web As Platform

• The value of the software is proportional to the scale and dynamism of the data it helps to manage.
• Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.
• The service automatically gets better the more people use it.

2. Harnessing Collective Intelligence

• Network effects from user contributions are the key to market dominance in the Web 2.0 era.

3. Data is the Next Intel Inside

• The company that first reaches critical mass via user aggregation, and turns that aggregated data into a system service will be the winner.
• The race is on to own certain classes of core data: location, identity, calendaring of public events, product identifiers and namespaces.

4. End of the Software Release Cycle

• Software is delivered as a service, not as a product.
• Operations must become a core competency à the software will cease to perform unless it is maintained on a daily basis.
• Users must be treated as co-developers.

5. Lightweight Programming Models

• Support lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems.
• Think syndication, not coordination.
• Design for "hackability" and remixability.

6. Software Above the Level of a Single Device

• Useful software written above the level of the single device will command high margins for a long time to come. (Dave Stutz)

7. Rich User Experiences

• Companies that succeed will create applications that learn from their users, using an architecture of participation to build a commanding advantage not just in the software interface, but in the richness of the shared data.

From the seven principles above, we can highlight some of the principal features of Web 2.0 that can become the core competencies of Web 2.0 companies:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability.
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them.
• Trusting users as co-developers.
• Harnessing collective intelligence.
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service.
• Software above the level of a single device.
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models.