What is Web 2.0 (4)

As noted in the above discussion of Google and Netscape, one of the defining features of the internet age is that it is delivered as a service, not as a product. This has led to a number of fundamental changes in the business model of such a company.
Operation (Operations) must be a core competitive power. Google or Yahoo's product development experts must be equipped with a daily running expert. Therefore, the basic principle is to turn the software from one product to service, unless it is maintained every day, the software will not stop performing the task. Google must continually search the Web, update its index, filter the spam links and other attempts to influence its results, constantly and dynamically respond to millions of of people's asynchronous queries, while giving them matching text ads.

It is no coincidence that Google's system management, network, and load-balancing technologies may be more secretive than search algorithms. Google's success in automating these programs is one of the advantages of facing other competitors.
Scripting languages such as Perl, Python, PHP, and now Ruby are not accidental in web2, 0 companies. Sun's first network administrator, Hassan Schroeder Perl, describes "the Internet's conveyor belt (the duct tape of the Internet)". Dynamic languages, often called scripting languages, that are flouted by software engineers in the software artifacts (software artifact) are the best tools for system and network administrators and for building application developers that need to be constantly changing dynamic systems.

Users must be seen as common developers, in the reflection of open source development practices (even if software is unlikely to be released under the Open source Agreement). Open source motto: "Early release, regular release", which has actually become a more radical "forever beta", the product open development, every month, week and even every day new features produced. As a result, Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, and other similar products may have a beta mark for years, and it's no accident.
Monitor user behavior in real time, only to discover what new features are being used, and how to use them, thus becoming another essential core competency. "We've added 2 to 3 new features to some parts of the site every day, and if the user doesn't accept it, we'll cancel it," commented one large online service network developer. If they like, we will expand to the entire site. ”
Flickr developer Cal Henderson recently disclosed that they are configuring some new features every half hour. This is obviously a completely different mode of development! Not all Web programs are as extreme as Flickr, and most Web applications have a completely different development cycle from the PC or client server ERA. For this reason, the latest ZDNet editorial concludes that Microsoft will not beat Google: Microsoft's business model relies on people updating their computing environment every 2 or 3 years, while Google relies on people discovering new things in computing environments every day.
Microsoft is good at learning its rivals, but this time there is no such problem, and competition will require Microsoft to become a completely different company (by extending it to other software companies). At the beginning of the birth, Web 2.0 companies had a natural advantage, and they did not have the old paradigm (and the corresponding business model and source of income) tied.

Lightweight planning Model

Once the idea of Web services becomes familiar, large companies with complex Web services and a highly trusted planning environment for distributed programs will enter the competition.
However, similar to the success of the network abandoning most of its hypertext theory, and with simple pragmatism instead of idealistic design, RSS, because of its simplicity, may be the most common network service. and the complex Cooperative Network Service has not been widely configured.
Similarly, Amazon provides network services in two ways: one attached to the soap form of the Network service stack, and the other only providing XML data over HTTP, sometimes called rest in lightweight mode. High-end business-to-business links Use the soap stack, while 95% use lightweight rest services.
In other "organic" web services, there are similar problems. Google's latest map service is a case in point. The simple Ajax interface of Google Maps is quickly explained by hackers, who then mix the data to form new services.
Map-related Web services have been available for some time, from geographic information systems vendors such as ESRI, Mapquest, and Microsoft MapPoint. But because of its simplicity, Google Maps ignited a fire in the world. To experience any formal vendor-supported network service requires a formal contract between the two sides, Google Maps to implement the way is to let the data for people to use, hackers soon found ways to reuse the data.

Here are a few very meaningful sermons:
Supports lightweight program modes that allow loosely connected systems. The complexity of the enterprise-sponsored network services stack is to make tight links possible. In many cases this is necessary, but most interesting applications can actually maintain loose, even fragile connections. The spirit of Web 2.0 differs from the traditional it spirit! Imagine aggregation, not reconciliation. Simple Web services such as RSS and Rest-based network services, when they reach the other end of the connection, are about aggregating data outward rather than controlling what is happening. This idea is the basic principle of the Internet itself and is the reflection of End-to-end (End-to-end).

Designed for Hackability and remixability

Systems such as raw networks, RSS, and Ajax all have something in common: the threshold for reuse is extremely low. Many useful software is actually open source, even if it is not, there are few barriers to intellectual property protection. The "View Code" of a Web browser makes it possible for any user to copy another's Web page, RSS is designed to make it possible for a user to see what he or she wants, not as a result of an information provider's command when needed, and the most successful Web services are those that are easiest to absorb in new directions, even the creators themselves have never imagined. Compared with the more typical "copyright", "Reserved part of copyright", which is popular through "creative sharing", is a useful signpost, and collective innovation Lightweight business model is a natural derivative of lightweight programs and links. The spirit of Web 2.0 is easy to reuse.

For example, a new service like ousingmaps.com is a simple combination of two existing services. Housingmaps.com does not yet have a business model, but for many small companies, Google AdSense (or perhaps Amazon's associates fees, or both) offers the same profit model.
These examples provide insight into another Web 2.0 principle, which we call collective innovation. When essential ingredients are plentiful, you can simply combine them in novel or effective ways to create new values. And the PC revolution has provided many innovative opportunities for assembling the necessary hardware, and companies like Dell have learned from such assembling, defeating companies whose business models require product development and innovation. We believe that Web 2.0 will provide opportunities for many companies to do a better job of leveraging and consolidating the services provided by others and defeating competitors.

Software beyond a single device

WEB 2.0 Another feature that should be a concern is that it is no longer limited to the PC platform. "The useful software written on a single device will be highly profitable for a long time to come," said Dave Stutz, a senior developer at Microsoft, in a farewell proposal to Microsoft. Useful software written above the level of the the ' single device would command high margins for a long ' to come.
Of course, any Web application can be viewed as a software that transcends a single device. After all, even the simplest web program involves two computers: a host server and a computer for browsing. As we have discussed, the development of the network as a platform extends this idea to a service synthesis program composed of multiple computers.
However, because 2.0-ness is not new in many Web 2.0 areas, but the realization of the true potential of the Web platform, this phrase gives us critical insight into how to design applications and services for the new platform.

So far, itunes is the best example of this principle. itunes seamlessly reaches the back-end of the network from the handheld device, and the PC acts as the local cache and console role. There have been many attempts to bring network content to portable devices, but the Ipod/itunes portfolio is one of the applications that completely spans multiple devices. TiVo is another good example.
ITunes and TiVo also prove the core principles of many other Web 2.0. They are not web apps in nature, but they take advantage of the power of the Web platform to make it seamless and almost as part of their underlying structure. Data management is clearly their heart. They are services, not application packages (although in the case of itunes, it can be used as a packager to manage only the user's local data).
The point is that both TiVo and itunes show a budding use of collective intelligence, although in their own case their experiments are still in conflict with IP channel (IP lobby). itunes has only a limited participation build, although the recent podcsting has fully changed this factor.
This is one of the areas of Web 2.0, and as more and more devices are connected to the new platform, we will see some great changes. What happens when our phones and cars are not consuming data but reporting data? Real-time traffic surveillance, flash mobs (flash mobs), civic media, these are just a few early signs of new platform capabilities.

WEB 2.0 Investment Paper

"The key is to find viable investments where you disagree with the public," says Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist.
It's interesting to see how each side of Web 2.0 includes different opinions from most people: everyone insists on keeping data private, flickr/napster and so on. It's not just disagreement, it's to find something useful from the disagreement. Flickr builds the community, Napster establishes the connection width.

Another way to look at this is that successful companies have abandoned some of the expensive, but are thought to be important in terms of free access to once-expensive valuable items. For example, Wikipedia has given up central editorial control in exchange for speed and scale. Napster gave up the idea of "catalogue" and got the scale. Amazon gave up the idea of a physical storefront in exchange for serving the world. Google (initially) gave up the idea of a big account and got 80% people who needed no satisfaction. In the following sentence, there are some aikido (enemy force) means, "You know, you are right, anyone in the world can definitely update this article." Guess what, this is your bad news? ”

Nat Torkington 7, Rich user experience

In the Viola browser invented by Pei Wei1992, the network was used to transmit applets and other active content in browsers. The introduction of Java in 1995 added a frame to such applet transmissions. JavaScript and DHTML are then introduced in lightweight fashion to provide a client-programmable and rich-user experience. A few years ago, Macromedia invented the term Rich Internet application (Rich Internet applications) (open source Flash competitor Laszlo Systems also uses this term), To highlight the ability of Flash: not only multimedia content, but also graphical user interface mode of the application experience.

However, the potential of a full-size application on the web has not hit the mainstream until Google launches Gmail, followed by Google Maps, web-based applications with a rich user interface and a PC-equivalent interaction. The technology Google uses is called Ajax, wrote in an article written by Jesse James Garrett of web design company Adaptive Path:
Ajax is not a technology. It's actually several technologies, each of which thrives on its own and then comes together in a new and powerful way. Ajax consists of:
standards-based statements that use XHTML CSS
Dynamic display and interaction using the document Object model
Using XML and XSL data exchange and processing
Asynchronous data retrieval using XMLHttpRequest
JavaScript binds all of them together.

Ajax is also a key component of Web 2.0 applications such as Flickr, the base of 37signals applications. Google is also the basis of Gmail and Orkut. We have entered an unprecedented period of user interface innovation, and Web developers have finally been able to build Web applications as rich as PC applications.
Interestingly, many of the capabilities that are now being explored have been around for years, and at the end of the 90, Microsoft and Netscape had imagined some of the capabilities now being realized, but their war on standards made it difficult to cross-browser programs. Only when Microsoft eventually defeats other browsers can a de facto single browser standard be written, and this application becomes possible. Firefox once again hit the browser market war, at least for now we have not seen to prevent the 90 's development, the browser standard of destructive competition.
We'll see a lot of new web apps in the next few years, including really novel and PC apps that are being re-import on the web. The change in each platform also creates an opportunity to change the program that dominated the previous platform.

Gmail has already brought interesting innovations to email, bringing together the power of the Web (easy to reach, deep database capabilities and search) and a user interface that is close to the PC in availability. At the same time, mail clients on other PC platforms are solving problems from the other side, increasing IM and rendering capabilities (presence capabilities). How far are we from the communications clients that integrate the advantages of Email,im handsets? The use of VoIP technology, to network programs to enhance the ability to increase voice power. The competition is still going on.
It's easy to see how Web 2.0 resets the Address book. The WEB 2.0-style address would have the address of the local computer or mobile phone as just the contact warehouse you explicitly let the system remember. At the same time, web-based, Gmail-style synchronization agents will remember each message sent or received, each e-mail address, and the phone number used. And, with social networking heuristics, to decide which ones to replace when they can't find the answer locally. If there is no answer, the system will query in a broader social network.
WEB 2.0 word processing will support Wiki collective editing, not just individual documents. However, it will also support our rich format for PC word processing. Writely is a good example of such a program, although it has not yet attracted widespread attention.

The WEB 2.0 revolution will also not be confined to PC applications, salesforce.com proving how the network can be used as a service delivery software, in enterprise applications such as CRM.
The opportunity to compete is to tap into the potential of Web 2.0. The winning companies will learn from users, create applications, and use participating organizations to build advantages not only in the software interface, but also in the richness of shared data.

WEB 2.0 Core Competitive power
In exploring the above 7 principles, we have highlighted some of the principle features of Web 2.0. Each of the examples we cite has proved one or more of these key principles, but it may also have been lost. The following summarizes the core competencies of Web 2.0 companies as an end.
• Services, not software packages, with high efficiency and low cost scalability
• Control of unique, difficult to reproduce the data source, the more people use, the more rich
• The user as a cooperative developer General Trust
• Leveraging on collective wisdom
• Generate long tail advantage from consumers ' own services
• Software beyond a single device level
• Lightweight user interface, development model, and business model