From: Mustafa Akgul (akgul@Bilkent.EDU.TR)
Date: Sun 15 Jan 2006 - 21:03:13 EET
Tim O'Reilly Defines Web 2.0
Winners and Losers in the New Age
Volume 95, Issue 2 Article 15707
January 9, 2006
The nature of "Web 2.0" and what to expect in the next generation of
software are the subjects of a long piece entitled Tim O'Reilly Defines
Web 2.0. He suggests that, whatever the other casualties of the dot-com
bubble, the web is alive and well and holds great promise for the
industry. O'Reilly sees the Web 2.0 concept 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."
Central to O'Reilly's view of Web 2.0 is the notion of the web as
platform that he sees as "...a seamless cooperation between two
websites, delivering an integrated page to a reader on yet another
computer." He draws a contrast between Netscape and Google, each a
flagship product of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, respectively. Netscape, he
claims, sought market dominance by promoting its web browser as the
bait that would lead users to seek out high-priced server products.
Unfortunately for Netscape, the market was looking for services rather
than commodities, which Google understood in focusing on services
delivered and paid for by its customers.
O'Reilly characterizes Google as "...a massively scalable collection of
commodity PCs running open source operating systems plus homegrown
applications and utilities that no one outside the company ever gets to
see." Neither server nor browser, Google delivers service experienced
by the user within the browser itself, O'Reilly asserts.
All of the second generation browsers share an understanding of the
power represented by the amalgamation of small sites that provide web
content. O'Reilly summarizes the Web 2.0 lesson, which is to, "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."
A corollary exists in the thinking behind such companies as BitTorrent,
he adds, which involves an "architecture of participation," meaning
something like the more the merrier, with the service improving in
quality as more and more customers use it. The service becomes
something like an intelligent broker in O'Reilly's view.
One of the hallmarks O'Reilly finds in the survivors from the Web 1.0
era, those who have become leaders in the days of Web 2.0, is that all
make the best possible use of the web's ability to harness what he
calls collective intelligence through such functions as hyperlinking.
Yahoo!, Google, eBay and Amazon all demonstrate an understanding of
this principle, he asserts, and their success is a consequence of that
understanding.
The principle itself has been extended by such organizations as
Wikipedia, del.icio.us and Flickr to allow such things as contribution
of content by users, collaborative categorization (which mimics the
formation of synapses in the brain, making searches more inclusive),
viral marketing and the contributions of the open source community.
Another characteristic of Web 2.0 is the phenomenon of blogging and the
RSS technology that has made it possible for bloggers make more than
just a personal home page out of their entries. "An RSS feed," O'Reilly
posits, "is thus a much stronger link than, say a bookmark or a link to
a single page... RSS also means that the web browser is not the only
means of viewing a web page. While some RSS aggregators, such as
Bloglines, are web-based, others are desktop clients, and still others
allow users of portable devices to subscribe to constantly updated
content."
Combining RSS and what O'Reilly calls "permalinks," - relationships
established among users - has made it possible to add some of the
features of the network News Protocol of the Usenet onto HTTP, enabling
the blogosphere to become a peer-to-peer counterpart of the bulletin
board and Usenet. And the blogosphere, through its extensive use of
links, shapes search engine results, with the further effect that the
links themselves create what some deride as the "echo chamber," where
the self-referential nature of blogging is most evident.
But, O'Reilly argues, the echo chamber also has an amplifying effect
that results in content being determined by a group whose former role
was that of passive audience.
The specialized databases behind the successful internet applications
are the chief capital of these companies, in O'Reilly's view. The need
for clear ownership of these databases is critical for the continued
success of the companies making them available. He notes the decline in
market share experienced by MapQuest when other applications began
using the same database to provide a similar mapping service. MapQuest
might have done well by adopting Amazon's practice of user annotations
to enrich their database, which would have given the MapQuest an
advantage over any competitor who merely bought the original database.
Players have learned the value of owning "...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 'Intel
Inside' style play, with a single source for the data. In others, the
winner will be the company that first reaches critical mass via user
aggregation, and turns that aggregated data into a system service,"
O'Reilly predicts. Finally, though, he expects there to be a Free Data
movement, spurred by the example of the Free Software movement, that
will eventually allow users to control the display of data on their
computers.
A major effect in Web 2.0, with software having become a service rather
than a product, is that services must pay constant attention to the
updating of their databases. Moreover, users must be allowed to play
the role of co-developers with contributions and changes coming along
so hard and fast that the solution exists in a state of "perpetual
beta," as is the case with Flickr, which claims to deploy new builds up
every half hour.
He cites a ZDnet editorial that concluded Microsoft won't be able to
beat Google because, "Microsoft's business model depends on everyone
upgrading their computing environment every two to three years.
Google's depends on everyone exploring what's new in their computing
environment every day."
The evolution of Web 2.0 has left its imprint on programming models as
well, O'Reilly continues. Practitioners have learned to use lightweight
programming models that enable loosely coupled systems and to think in
terms of syndication rather than coordination - syndicating data
outwards - respecting the end-to-end principle that underlies the
internet. And, exhibiting the greatest difference from proprietary
software practices, "design for hackability and remixability," so as to
enlist the contributions of as many users as possible toward the
further evolution of a solution. Success in the Web 2.0 era will come
to companies that are the best at harnessing and integrating services
provided by others, he suggests.
Another effect on software design stems from the need to write software
that will support more than a single platform, software that has the
characteristics of a service rather than an application. iTunes and
TiVo are two examples of this evolution that O'Reilly cites.
O'Reilly sees several competencies that Web 2.0 companies need to
demonstrate if they are to thrive in this new climate. In general
terms, he says, "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."
The competencies he enumerates are:
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
O'Reilly's argument is supplemented with several sidebars that illustrate
such ideas as the wisdom of concentrating on platforms rather than
applications; exploiting the architecture of participation; an
investment strategy for Web 2.0; and Web 2.0 design patterns.
http://sun.systemnews.com/printerfriendly?article=15707
http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/95/2/feature/15707
------------
Saygilar
Mustafa Akgul
_______________________________________________
Linux-sohbet mailing list
Linux-sohbet@liste.linux.org.tr
http://liste.linux.org.tr/mailman/listinfo/linux-sohbet