A number of folks have asked me “So you've got all this on Ajax/Atlas stuff, what about Web 2.0?”  Here's the response.

To set the record straight, I want to be clear on a few things:

  • I've had the priviledge of working with some very bright people at imason, at Microsoft, and with a few customers (namely Torstar) who have helped shape these ideas.
  • The authoritative article on Web 2.0 is Tim O'Reilly's What is Web 2.0.  If you haven't read it, you really should.

I also do not want to rail on about the actual term “Web 2.0.”  Arguably, it's not the most appropriate as the topic is much bigger than “the Web” and the “2.0” implies that there is a version of the web; that there was a 1.0 and that there is or will be a web 2.0.  The whole notion of “versions” is totally contrary to one of O'Reilly's 7 pillars of Web 2.0 (End of the Software Release Cycle), so I'm curious why the folks at O'Reilly chose that term.  To be fair the term was coined in mid 2004, and Tim O'Reilly's article was a September 2005 release.  Arguably much has changed along the way.  Damn - I think I'm railing on on the term....

So, what is Web 2.0?  Web 2.0 is about quantifying the successful interaction, work and business models that are and will continue to be powered by the World Wide Web.  Now there's a mouthful!  And here in lies the first key to Web 2.0:

Key #1:  It is both reflective and forward looking.  It is a quantification what has already been successful on the Web, and what will drive success going forward on the Web. 

Lets be specific about what “models“ mean.

  • Interaction Model - An “interaction model” is nothing other than the different ways that people can interact with each other.
  • Work Model - Simply put, this is the way that people go about completing their daily work.  This can be in the commercial sense -- and often is -- but work models aren't limited to commercial activities.
  • Business Models - Here, we're speaking in terms of financial models or perhaps better stated “How businesses make money“

Key #2:  Web 2.0 isn't about technology.  It's about understanding fundamental changes and innovations in interaction models, work models and business models that, in many cases, are only possible on the Web.

With that very high-level overview of what I mean when I say “Web 2.0”, lets talk about the pillars of Web 2.0.

Pillar #1 - New models
The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee back in 1989 and in many ways I see the invention of the WWW as, in fact, the invention of a new work model.  Hyperlinking was at the root of this radical new work model, and although the idea of “cross linking” documents wasn't new it was the particular approach that Berners-Lee took the drove the new work model that came to be known the world over as simply “The Web.” 

So to drive the point home that Web 2.0 is both reflective and forward looking, you can see the original invention of the Web (call it Web 0.0 if you will) was, in fact, centered around the idea of creating a new work model.  This is not a new trend, but one that is definitely accelerating.

Over the 14 years of the Web before 2004 when the Web 2.0 term was coined, there are numerous examples of great innovators on the Web.  These innovations were great because they created new interaction models, new work models or new business models (or sometimes even all 3!) that had previously been untapped.  Lets take some specific examples:

  • Interaction models.  Now you have to think way back to the early days of the web - say, 1995 or 1996.  Many people knew the Web and Yahoo as something similar - Yahoo provided what now seems to be a somewhat obvious new interacation model (directories of web sites), that allowed people to do things that were previously impossible or very difficult.  This interaction model is now outdated, of course, but at the time it was a new interaction model and so you could say that it met this test of “Web 2.0“.
  • Work Models.  Google (and other search vendors) really were at the forefront of breakthroughs in work models driven by search.  Think about how much the work associated with say, doing research has changed as a result of Web searching.
  • Business Models.  There are just so many examples here to choose from, but I think eBay might be the most vivid.  Talk about a new business model!!!!  They just blazed the trail there with infrastructure to support peer-to-peer transactions and thousands upon thousands of virtual “retail stores“ and the buying market to support them.  Wow!  That's Web 2.0 and this is back in the early to mid 90s.

There are literally hundreds of examples of these but let me grab two from Tim O'Reilly's white paper - DoubleClick and Google AdSense.  While O'Reilly might desribe DoubleClick as “Web 1.0“, I don't.  DoubleClick was at the forefront of inventing a new business model, and one that was really only possible on the Internet.  They were in.  Ultimately though, other competitors took it to the next level and innovated further in the same business domain.  So Google AdSense is definitely Web 2.0, but so was DoubleClick in their day.

Key #3:  Web 2.0 is about new interaction models, new work models and new business models that are only possible on, or with, the Web.

Key #4:  Just because your first to market with a new model, doesn't mean you'll stay there.  Web 2.0 is about constantly inventing new models, even if it's in the same domain.

Pillar #2:  Power to the people
Did I mention you really should read Tim O'Reilly's What is Web 2.0?  If you haven't, go there now.  Trust me.  O'Reilly's pillar of “Harnessing Collective Intelligence (2)” fits in here.  Other folks like Paul Graham talk about it in terms of “democratization.”  While I think democratization captures the scope of it better, it's a word that is more-or-less uncomfortable to me and allows for too many far reaching comparisons.

So what am I talking about here?  I'm talking about Web 2.0 as giving the power back to individuals in two ways:

  1. As contributors and paticipants in communities
  2. As creators of huge communities themselves

Contributors and participants in communities
Giving power to people to contribute and participate in huge communities is well-reflected in sites like del.icio.us and flickr, so I don't really want to belabor the point.  But let me make the connection back to pillar #1 - in many cases it is the ability to allow people to contribute and participate in communities that allows new models (interaction, work, business) to develop and thrive.  Giving power to the people to contribute and participate has propelled www.wikipedia.com to be one of the top 100 sites on the Web!  Again, keep in mind Key #3 - Web 2.0 is about models that are only possible on, or with, the Web.

A friend of mine, and a customer, (HM, you know who you are), talks passionately about the “currency of flickr“ not being dollars and cents but rather that the currency is approval - the approval of your fellow photo enthusiasts who get to rank, categorize, tag, group and mark as favorites your photos.  And this is really the genious of flickr - that they've been able to create a community (or a social network if you like that better) that people simply love to contribute and partipate in.

Key #5:  {Taken right from O'Reilly} Network effects from user contributions are the key to market dominance in the Web 2.0 era.

Creators of communities:
The second part is powering individuals to create the communities and innovtions that drive the new models that we're speaking of.   This can take a bunch of different forms, one of the most vivid is the blog itslef.  Of course, personal home pages have been around for years but it wasn't until the blog took off, that people were really able to create their own communities.  Now, individuals can, via their blog, reach out to hundreds or thousands or millions of people and literally create their own community.  Again, the blog is a great example of something that hits Pillar #1 (New models) and Pillar #2 (Power to the people).

Another aspect of creators of communities ties back to technology.  And while I did say that Web 2.0 wasn't about technology -- it isn't -- technology is still a factor.  O'Reilly's “Lightweight Programming Models (5)“ talks about how Web 2.0 is open to people to create their own applications (and thereby create a community) by leveraging huge investments that others have made.  Commonly called “mashups“ these clever combinations of functionality from different places are built by enthusiasts who want to demonstrate their prowess and build communities and solve problems.  www.wikipedia.org is itself an exmple of this as are others like www.beerhunter.ca and www.housingmaps.com.  The former combines data from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) -- yes, Ontario does regulate alcohol -- with google maps.  The latter combines housing rental information from www.craigslist.org (itself a mashup, by a guy named craig) and http://maps.google.com.  These folks are creating huge communities with relatively little investment - power to the people.

In O'Reilly's lingo, the folks behind wikipedia, craigslist. beerhunter, housingmaps are the long tail and they service the long tail.  That's Web 2.0.

Pillar #3:  Fun
The third and final pillar of Web 2.0 is that it's fun.  What's this mean?  It means that there is something intangible about using something that is Web 2.0.  Take iTunes, flickr, beerhunter, housingmaps, etc.  - there's a certian intangible pleasure in using these sites.  They engage you, they pull you in.  They make you stay there even when you've already accomplished what you came for.  Sometimes you even go there even when you don't have anything specific to do; you just hang out.

A lot of people are taking about Web 2.0 in terms of User Experience or what O'Reilly calls “Rich User Experiences (7)“.  This is, of course, correct but I think it overstates something that is much simpler.  Fun things are easy to use and evoke a good user experience but you can certainly have a good user experience without it being fun (every used a bank machine?)  So, Web 2.0 as a huge aspect of “fun“ to it.

Key #6:  The evidence of fun, is fast viral infectious user uptake.  {Taken right from O'Reilly)  It is a truism that the greatest internet success stories don't advertise their products. Their adoption is driven by "viral marketing"--that is, recommendations propagating directly from one user to another. You can almost make the case that if a site or product relies on advertising to get the word out, it isn't Web 2.0.

This Pillar is of course tied to the other 2 - if you make something fun, it gives power to the people, and it helps with developing new models.  I should also point out here that AJAX as a technical approach is part of this, but using Ajax really doesn't have much to do with making something fun.

Wrapup

I don't want leave the impression that every success on the Web will have to nail each of the 3 pillars or that every success on the Web has hit on each of the three pillars.  Indeed, when you look at something like Online Banking you could argue that it hasn't hit on any pillar but it is still a success from many different vantage points.  Other examples like Google AdSense have hit on some pillars (New Model, Power to the people) but not all (you'd be hard pressed to call AdSense “fun“, although Google Analytics at least gets us closer).  Still others like eBay are really hitting on all pillars. 

Key #7:  Create new models, give power to the people and make it fun.  If you do that, there's a good chance someone will look and say “now that's Web 2.0!“

I've outlined three pillars of Web 2.0:

  1. New Models
  2. Power to the People
  3. Fun

and 7 Keys to Web 2.0:

  • Key #1:  It is both reflective and forward looking.  It is a quantification what has already been successful on the Web, and what will drive success going forward on the Web. 
  • Key #2:  Web 2.0 isn't about technology.  It's about understanding fundamental changes and innovations in interaction models, work models and business models that, in many cases, are only possible on the Web.
  • Key #3:  Web 2.0 is about new interaction models, new work models and new business models that are only possible on, or with, the Web.
  • Key #4:  Just because your first to market with a new model, doesn't mean you'll stay there.  Web 2.0 is about constantly inventing new models, even if it's in the same domain.
  • Key #5:  {Taken right from O'Reilly} Network effects from user contributions are the key to market dominance in the Web 2.0 era.
  • Key #6:  The evidence of fun, is fast viral infectious user uptake.  {Taken right from O'Reilly)  It is a truism that the greatest internet success stories don't advertise their products. Their adoption is driven by "viral marketing"--that is, recommendations propagating directly from one user to another. You can almost make the case that if a site or product relies on advertising to get the word out, it isn't Web 2.0.

  • Key #7:  Create new models, give power to the people and make it fun.  If you do that, there's a good chance someone will look and say “now that's Web 2.0!“

Let the discusionss begin!