Web 2.0 Architectures

The Participation-Collaboration Pattern

Also Known As

The Participation-Collaboration pattern is related to two other patterns:

Harnessing Collective Intelligence

This pattern, from the O’Reilly Radar report Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices, discusses aspects of the Participation-Collaboration pattern where inputs from many users over time are combined into composite works.

Innovation in Assembly

This pattern, also from the O’Reilly Radar report Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices, is focused on the ability to build platforms where remixing of data and services creates new opportunities and markets. The Participation-Collaboration pattern and the data aggregation patterns in this book cover some aspects of this and of the Harnessing Collective Intelligence pattern.

The Constant Beta

Another pattern sometimes talked about in relation to Web 2.0 is the Constant Beta pattern. Many companies are benefiting by releasing products (including software or other digital assets) earlier in the design and development cycle, allowing users to directly interact with these assets and help provide direction toward finishing the work.

Companies we studied that were considered “Web 2.0 companies” tended to act in a very agile manner. Some of them were flexible by design, in stark contrast to many of the larger companies existing in their space in years gone by. Ruby on Rails^[77] gets a great deal of attention as a flexible technology; however, the Getting Real design and development process perfected ...