Web 2.0: Principles and Best Practices

Introduction

In 2004, we realized that the Web was on the cusp of a new era, one that would finally let loose the power of network effects, setting off a surge of innovation and opportunity. To help usher in this new era, O'Reilly Media and CMP launched a conference that showcased the innovators who were driving it. When O'Reilly's Dale Dougherty came up with the term "Web 2.0" during a brainstorming session, we knew we had the name for the conference. What we didn't know was that the industry would embrace the Web 2.0 meme and that it would come to represent the new Web.

Web 2.0 is much more than just pasting a new user interface onto an old application. It's a way of thinking, a new perspective on the entire business of software—from concept through delivery, from marketing through support. Web 2.0 thrives on network effects: databases that get richer the more people interact with them, applications that are smarter the more people use them, marketing that is driven by user stories and experiences, and applications that interact with each other to form a broader computing platform.

The trend toward networked applications is accelerating. While Web 2.0 has initially taken hold in consumer-facing applications, the infrastructure required to build these applications, and the scale at which they are operating, means that, much as PCs took over from mainframes in a classic demonstration of Clayton Christensen's "innovator's dilemma" hypothesis, web applications can and will move ...