All businesses had better figure out what it means to engage in “distributed, collaborative and cumulative creation” and adjust their business models and capabilities accordingly.

I spend most of my time dealing with business execs who view technology as an enabler - their natural (and not unreasonable question) is: so what does this enable?

Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the m…

Stories and examples work far better in capturing the texture and richness of what is going on than abstract concepts. Trying to impose boundaries too early limits the imagination.

http://edgeperspectives.typepad.com/edge_perspectives/2005/10/web_20_redux.html

Technologies alone can only do so much – they are ultimately only enablers. The real power is in the mindset that will be required to re-shape economic, social and legal frameworks to exploit the full potential of the technology.

Although there were certainly exceptions, Web 1.0 largely consisted of stand-alone web sites for specialized publishers and vendors seeking to more effectively reach audiences and consumers.

Cumulative. Perhaps the most important aspect of this platform is that it encourages cumulative creation. It means that wherever and whenever creative activity occurs, it can be appropriated and built upon by others, further strengthening …

Creation. The ultimate purpose and significance of the platform is to support creation, not just communication or participation in sharing of interests. This is what makes it truly distinctive relative to previous generations of networks.

Platform. Platform is an important concept because it suggests a foundation that is meant to be built upon rather than self-contained.

“an emerging network-centric platform to support distributed, collaborative and cumulative creation by its users.”

They seem to be focusing on examples, components or dimensions of Web 2.0 without really getting to the essence of the concept.

http://edgeperspectives.typepad.com/edge_perspectives/2005/09/what_is_web_20.html

The PC is no longer the only access device for internet applications, and applications that are limited to a single device are less valuable than those that are connected. Therefore: Design your application from the get-go to integrate ser…

Web 2.0 applications are built of a network of cooperating data services. Therefore: Offer web services interfaces and content syndication, and re-use the data services of others. Support lightweight programming models that allow for loose…

When devices and programs are connected to the internet, applications are no longer software artifacts, they are ongoing services. Therefore: Don't package up new features into monolithic releases, but instead add them on a regular basis a…

Intellectual property protection limits re-use and prevents experimentation. Therefore: When benefits come from collective adoption, not private restriction, make sure that barriers to adoption are low. Follow existing standards, and use l…

Only a small percentage of users will go to the trouble of adding value to your application. Therefore: Set inclusive defaults for aggregating user data as a side-effect of their use of the application.

The key to competitive advantage in internet applications is the extent to which users add their own data to that which you provide. Therefore: Don't restrict your "architecture of participation" to software development. Involve your users…

Applications are increasingly data-driven. Therefore: For competitive advantage, seek to own a unique, hard-to-recreate source of data.

Small sites make up the bulk of the internet's content; narrow niches make up the bulk of internet's the possible applications. Therefore: Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to th…

This same quest for simplicity can be seen in other "organic" web services. Google's recent release of Google Maps is a case in point. Google Maps' simple AJAX (Javascript and XML) interface was quickly decrypted by hackers, who then proce…

Another way to look at it is that the successful companies all give up something expensive but considered critical to get something valuable for free that was once expensive. For example, Wikipedia gives up central editorial control in ret…

The key is to find the actionable investments where you disagree with the consensus.

The race is on to own certain classes of core data: location, identity, calendaring of public events, product identifiers and namespaces. In many cases, where there is significant cost to create the data, there may be an opportunity for an…

We expect to see battles between data suppliers and application vendors in the next few years, as both realize just how important certain classes of data will become as building blocks for Web 2.0 applications.

Contrast, however, the position of Amazon.com. Like competitors such as Barnesandnoble.com, its original database came from ISBN registry provider R.R. Bowker. But unlike MapQuest, Amazon relentlessly enhanced the data, adding publisher-su…

Every significant internet application to date has been backed by a specialized database: Google's web crawl, Yahoo!'s directory (and web crawl), Amazon's database of products, eBay's database of products and sellers, MapQuest's map databa…

If it were merely an amplifier, blogging would be uninteresting. But like Wikipedia, blogging harnesses collective intelligence as a kind of filter. What James Suriowecki calls "the wisdom of crowds" comes into play, and much as PageRank p…

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