I’ve dis­cussed Web 2.0 at length in its var­i­ous forms on this site, but it looks like, with aware­ness of the phe­nom­e­non grow­ing in busi­ness, many of our (by which I mean you and me) clients are inter­ested in hav­ing “a Web 2.0 site”. Trou­ble is, I don’t think many of them under­stand just what that means, and I also think that from a con­sult­ing per­spec­tive, some of us are fail­ing to trans­fer that knowl­edge to them. Let’s start by not lay­ing blame. Web 2.0 is hard to explain.

Here’s what I’m see­ing. Many sites out there are get­ting makeovers that have them look­ing like Web 2.0 sites, but they’re the same old thing under the skin — walled gar­dens push­ing a mes­sage from the top down.

Here’s an exam­ple. Today, on one of the mail­ing lists I sub­scribe to, an inter­est­ing ques­tion was asked:

I have been tasked with research­ing the web for sites that are doing inter­est­ing and new things with the “web 2.0 model” for our client. I have been wan­der­ing around a lot look­ing at prod­uct sites such as Sony, Best Buy, and Miele UK to see what’s out there. I was won­der­ing if any of you had any really inter­est­ing sites that you have seen that you could send my way. Thanks in advance.

When I jumped in to open my big mouth, there had been five responses — all deal­ing with Web 2.0 look and feel, but none deal­ing with the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion in my mind, of just what the “Web 2.0 model” being asked about was. Now, I don’t by any means think the ques­tion or the responses were unin­formed or mis­un­der­stood the ques­tion. But I do think that look and feel is get­ting some strong (per­haps too strong) focus at the detri­ment of the other attrib­utes that make Web 2.0 what it is.

I asked the fol­low­ing question:

While every­one answer­ing so far has approached Web 2.0 from a visual sense, as some­one who also con­sults on use of social media and social net­work­ing, I have to ask whether the client is after a Web 2.0 “look” or do they want to reimag­ine their offer­ing from a social net­work­ing and social media sense?

To get a han­dle on what I’m talk­ing about, let’s look at Tim O’Reilly’s Sep­tem­ber 2005 def­i­n­i­tion [1]. Tim offers seven core attrib­utes (with my summaries):

  1. The Web as Plat­form — the appli­ca­tion is natively web-​​based
  2. Har­ness­ing Col­lec­tive Intel­li­gence — embrac­ing the cus­tomer and stake­holder for the wis­dom of crowds, open­ing the cor­po­rate wall to com­mu­ni­ca­tion and an instant feed­back loop of customer->company->customer through pub­licly exposed tools such as blogs
  3. Data is the Next Intel Inside — lever­ag­ing the value of cor­po­rate data by using oth­ers data through APIs and open­ing your data to reuse
  4. End of the Soft­ware Release Cycle — no big bang releases, just incre­men­tal improvement
  5. Light­weight Pro­gram­ming Mod­els — use of RoR, PHP or what­ever other fast, light lan­guage is appro­pri­ate to facil­i­tate fast launch and incre­men­tal fea­ture improve­ment — no more big bang site reworks
  6. Soft­ware Above the Level of a Sin­gle Device — web, iPhone, mobile, TV, PS3, what­ever — if it can use your app, let it
  7. Rich User Expe­ri­ence — attrac­tive, user-​​centered design and feature-​​rich inter­ac­tion focussed on long term, valu­able user experience

Often, #7 is the only one dis­cussed in depth by clients. They want a good look­ing, sexy site that draws in the cus­tomers. How­ever, the remain­ing six, adopted to one extent or another are really what makes an appli­ca­tion or site ful­fil the Web 2.0 promise. With visual treat­ment only, it’s just lip­stick on a pig.

If you’re work­ing with a client and they are excited by this “Web 2.0 thing” they’ve heard about, it’s in your inter­ests as a respon­si­ble, pro­fes­sional con­sul­tant to make them aware of what Web 2.0 is really all about. It will prob­a­bly scare the hell out of them. But again, with good, trusted coun­sel from you, your client (or your com­pany if you’re an “innie”) has the oppor­tu­nity to break the mould around their offer­ing and come away with some­thing real, impor­tant and con­nected to their mar­ket in new and excit­ing ways. Ways that could offer real ben­e­fits if the changes entailed in Web 2.0 are adopted wholeheartedly.

Tim also offers sev­eral design pat­terns that you ought to raise with your client. These pat­terns heav­ily inform the Web 2.0 expe­ri­ence, and again, fail­ing to include them as core fea­tures to one extent or another results in pay­ment of noth­ing more than lip ser­vice to the Web 2.0 model. Some of them are matched to the core attrib­utes. Here’s the list of pat­terns and their mean­ings, lifted directly from the oreilly​.com article:

  1. The Long Tail — 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 the edges and not just the cen­ter, to the long tail and not just the head.
  2. Data is the Next Intel Inside — Appli­ca­tions are increas­ingly data-​​driven. There­fore: For com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, seek to own a unique, hard-​​to-​​recreate source of data.
  3. Users Add Value — 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 both implic­itly and explic­itly in adding value to your application.
  4. Net­work Effects by Default — 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.
  5. Some Rights Reserved — 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 licenses with as few restric­tions as pos­si­ble. Design for “hack­a­bil­ity” and “remixability.”
  6. The Per­pet­ual Beta — 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 as part of the nor­mal user expe­ri­ence. Engage your users as real-​​time testers, and instru­ment the ser­vice so that you know how peo­ple use the new features.
  7. Coop­er­ate, Don’t Con­trol — 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 loosely-​​coupled systems.
  8. Soft­ware Above the Level of a Sin­gle Device — 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 ser­vices across hand­held devices, PCs, and inter­net servers.

Take a look also at Tim’s video from last year where, once again, he was asked what Web 2.0 is:

So, I guess for you, the next big ques­tion for you and your client is — lip­stick and lip ser­vice, or com­mit­ment to the fun­da­men­tal mean­ing of Web 2.0?

1. What is Web 2.0 — Design Pat­terns and Busi­ness Mod­els for the Next Gen­er­a­tion of Soft­ware, Tim O’Reilly, 30 Sep 2005. http://​www​.oreilly​.com/​p​u​b​/​a​/​o​r​e​i​l​l​y​/​t​i​m​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​0​5​/​0​9​/​3​0​/​w​h​a​t​-​i​s​-​w​e​b​-​2​0​.​h​tml. Retrieved 19 Mar 2008.