http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/web-20-compact-definition-tryi.html

Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again

A commenter on one of my previous posts about Web 2.0 wrote:

Why is everyone referencing O’Reilly regarding the correct definition of Web 2.0. I never could get my head around this. I personally think that his definition of Web 2.0, isn't actually definition. He basically came up with some analogies which people later used to define what ‘they’ thought Web 2.0 was. If O’Reilly actually defined it, would there be so much debate?

I replied, and thought that my reply might be worth publishing more widely than just in the comments. So here is a new attempt at a brief definition:

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")

(Eric Schmidt has an even briefer formulation of this rule: "Don't fight the internet." That's actually a wonderful way to think about it. Think deeply about the way the internet works, and build systems and applications that use it more richly, freed from the constraints of PC-era thinking, and you're well on your way. Ironically, Tim Berners-Lee's original Web 1.0 is one of the most "Web 2.0" systems out there -- it completely harnesses the power of user contribution, collective intelligence, and network effects. It was Web 1.5, the dotcom bubble, in which people tried to make the web into something else, that fought the internet, and lost.)

Other rules (which mostly fall out of this one) include:

1. Don't treat software as an artifact, but as a process of engagement with your users. ("The perpetual beta")

    

2. Open your data and services for re-use by others, and re-use the data and services of others whenever possible. ("Small pieces loosely joined")

    

    

3. Don't think of applications that reside on either client or server, but build applications that reside in the space between devices. ("Software above the level of a single device")

    

    

4. Remember that in a network environment, open APIs and standard protocols win, but this doesn't mean that the idea of competitive advantage goes away. (Clayton Christensen: "The law of conservation of attractive profits")

    

    

5. Chief among the future sources of lock in and competitive advantage will be data, whether through increasing returns from user-generated data (eBay, Amazon reviews, audioscrobbler info in last.fm, email/IM/phone traffic data as soon as someone who owns a lot of that data figures out that's how to use it to enable social networking apps, GPS and other location data), through owning a namespace (Gracenote/CDDB, Network Solutions), or through proprietary file formats (Microsoft Office, iTunes). ("Data is the Intel Inside")

 

(I'll note that the process of getting advantage from data isn't necessary a case of companies being "evil." It's a natural outcome of network effects applied to user contribution. Being first or best, you will attract the most users, and if your application truly harnesses network effects to get better the more people use it, you will eventually build barriers to entry based purely on the difficulty of building another such database from the ground up when there's already so much value somewhere else. (This is why no one has yet succeeded in displacing eBay. Once someone is at critical mass, it's really hard to get people to try something else, even if the software is better.) The question of "don't be evil" will come up when it's clear that someone who has amassed this kind of market position has to decide what to do with it, and whether or not they stay open at that point.)

"Defining" a business model transition is always hard. We had a "personal computer" era long before the business rules were clear. A deeper understanding of the new rules of business in the PC era, and a ruthless application of them before anyone else understood them as well, is what made Microsoft the king of the hill in that era.

A lot of what I'm trying to do with my thinking on Web 2.0 is to make the rules apparent to everyone, so that the industry isn't blindsided. Perhaps a hopeless effort, but I've gotten some traction...

Interesting article on ZDnet - on the benefits of location intelligence - Australian organisations can save money by examining their use of location intelligence and customer data in the current climate
http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9589_22-246356.html

Mark Smith, Ventana Research , Special to ZDNet

Commentary--Information about location has never been more available or more widely used. Businesses rely on it to plan store and office placement and logistics and to learn about their customers. Consumers use it to get directions and find places to shop.

Advances in products based on global positioning technology and in presence indicators in mobile phones have made this information more readily available and affordable.

The accompanying broad acceptance of technology standards has freed organizations from costly investments in proprietary handheld devices, positioning signal devices and custom-built applications that are difficult to maintain and upgrade.

As a result, location intelligence is now part of everyday life. Incorporated in commodities such as mobile phones, personal navigation devices and notebook computers, location-based services can be used with business applications as well as for consumer purposes.

A massive effort is underway by information providers and businesses across the world to location-code information about homes, retail outlets and other places; that then can be made available via satellite and other delivery mechanisms. This will particularly benefit businesses that take steps to integrate information outside of the business with relevant internal information, making its business information richer and a more useful basis for making decisions. The obvious usefulness of location information has made it attractive to millions of people who consume it in mapping applications on the Internet from Google and others or in automobiles with global positioning system (GPS) tools.

However, these consumer technologies lack an array of capabilities that would be needed to apply them for business purposes. Google’s software, for example, can do a great job of basic mapping, but it was not designed to handle the flexible tagging of associated business data to allow it to be used for analysis in location contexts.

To address this disconnect between the consumer focus of location intelligence and the rapidly burgeoning needs of businesses to be able to use location as a component of their analysis and decision-making, companies must turn to the array of software coming to market designed to work with location information.

For example, when Johnny’s Lunch, a quick service restaurant specializing in hot dogs, decided to branch into franchising it turned to location intelligence. Johnny’s Lunch, which operated for 70 years in Jamestown, NY, has ambitious growth plans. Using Pitney Bowes MapInfo location intelligence solutions, the company identified its target customer and ideal markets.

Johnny’s Lunch was also able to identify what areas to begin its franchise operations in first and how many restaurants certain markets could sustain. Location intelligence played a vital role in how the company planned and executed its expansion. So far, Johnny’s Lunch has opened five restaurants in Michigan and one in Ohio and they expected to open more than 10 by the end of the year.

These products provide a location intelligence workbench and dedicated capabilities that can be used for robust analysis of, for example, historical customer purchasing patterns and associated trending data. With location intelligence, organizations can identify where their target customers and competition are located, allowing them to maximize operations, marketing and services.

Location-enabling of business planning and operations increasingly will be required for competitive positioning. Organizations should evaluate vendors of location intelligence business tools by first establishing the ways in which location-enabling will improve business performance.

Benchmark research on location intelligence found that the largest share of participating organizations (36 percent) want to utilize it in combination with customer-focused data; demographic and market analysis capabilities was ranked the top application need. These findings suggest how business executives and managers are viewing what location intelligence can deliver for their organizations.

When approaching location intelligence, start with the basics – information that can enhance knowledge about your products and services. For example, what can location add to your knowledge of the state of your supply chain – providing, for example, transit and other availability information about shipments from manufacturer to consumer or from route to service fulfillment.

Also, the siting of retail locations relative to existing customers is a great place to start improving business processes through the addition of location factors. These basic capabilities of location intelligence can enhance the operational performance of an organization and also provide additional agility to further empower decision-making.

We live in a global economy, but every person and product exists in a specific place. By looking through the lens of location, you can learn about your organization and its customers in ways that will translate into a competitive edge, both today and tomorrow. Location intelligence can be the innovation that your business has been looking for; don’t miss the opportunity to examine its potential for you.

With the downturn in the economy may businesses are looking to cut costs and save time. One of the simplest ways to do this is through remote desktop / screen-sharing collaboration service technology, or web-conferencing.

Many organisations are familiar with this technology, particularly the Web-Ex product. However there are a number of players in the market some with price points more suited to small business.

If you are not already conducting remote meetings for sales, marketing, customer service and support we suggest you check out these applications. If you are already conducting remote meetings maybe now is th time to review which application best suits your needs.

www.webex.com - a range of pricing plans starting from circa US$49 per month
www.gotomeeting.com  - US$49 per month
www.yuuguu.com  - Free (costs for voice conference)
www.glance.net  - US$49 per month, $9.95 for one off meetings
www.beamyourscreen.com  - beginning at Eur30 per month
www.teamviewer.com - US$249 per month

The top ten strategic technologies for 2009 as identified by Gartner.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=777212

“Strategic technologies affect, run, grow and transform the business initiatives of an organization,” said David Cearley, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “Companies should look at these 10 opportunities and evaluate where these technologies can add value to their business services and solutions, as well as develop a process for detecting and evaluating the business value of new technologies as they enter the market.”

The top 10 strategic technologies for 2009 include:

Virtualization.  Much of the current buzz is focused on server virtualization, but virtualization in storage and client devices is also moving rapidly. Virtualization to eliminate duplicate copies of data on the real storage devices while maintaining the illusion to the accessing systems that the files are as originally stored (data deduplication) can significantly decrease the cost of storage devices and media to hold information. Hosted virtual images deliver a near-identical result to blade-based PCs. But, instead of the motherboard function being located in the data center as hardware, it is located there as a virtual machine bubble. However, despite ambitious deployment plans from many organizations, deployments of hosted virtual desktop capabilities will be adopted by fewer than 40 percent of target users by 2010.

Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is a style of computing that characterizes a model in which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled capabilities to consumers. They key characteristics of cloud computing are 1) delivery of capabilities “as a service,” 2) delivery of services in a highly scalable and elastic fashion, 3) using Internet technologies and techniques to develop and deliver the services, and 4) designing for delivery to external customers. Although cost is a potential benefit for small companies, the biggest benefits are the built-in elasticity and scalability, which not only reduce barriers to entry, but also enable these companies to grow quickly. As certain IT functions are industrializing and becoming less customized, there are more possibilities for larger organizations to benefit from cloud computing.

Servers — Beyond Blades.  Servers are evolving beyond the blade server stage that exists today. This evolution will simplify the provisioning of capacity to meet growing needs. The organization tracks the various resource types, for example, memory, separately and replenishes only the type that is in short supply. This eliminates the need to pay for all three resource types to upgrade capacity. It also simplifies the inventory of systems, eliminating the need to track and purchase various sizes and configurations. The result will be higher utilization because of lessened “waste” of resources that are in the wrong configuration or that come along with the needed processors and memory in a fixed bundle.

Web-Oriented Architectures. The Internet is arguably the best example of an agile, interoperable and scalable service-oriented environment in existence. This level of flexibility is achieved because of key design principles inherent in the Internet/Web approach, as well as the emergence of Web-centric technologies and standards that promote these principles. The use of Web-centric models to build global-class solutions cannot address the full breadth of enterprise computing needs. However, Gartner expects that continued evolution of the Web-centric approach will enable its use in an ever-broadening set of enterprise solutions during the next five years.

EnterpriseMashups. Enterprises are now investigating taking mashups from cool Web hobby to enterprise-class systems to augment their models for delivering and managing applications. Through 2010, the enterprise mashup product environment will experience significant flux and consolidation, and application architects and IT leaders should investigate this growing space for the significant and transformational potential it may offer their enterprises.

Specialized Systems. Appliances have been used to accomplish IT purposes, but only with a few classes of function have appliances prevailed. Heterogeneous systems are an emerging trend in high-performance computing to address the requirements of the most demanding workloads, and this approach will eventually reach the general-purpose computing market. Heterogeneous systems are also specialized systems with the same single-purpose imitations of appliances, but the heterogeneous system is a server system into which the owner installs software to accomplish its function.

Social Software and Social Networking. Social software includes a broad range of technologies, such as social networking, social collaboration, social media and social validation. Organizations should consider adding a social dimension to a conventional Web site or application and should adopt a social platform sooner, rather than later, because the greatest risk lies in failure to engage and thereby, being left mute in a dialogue where your voice must be heard.

Unified Communications. During the next five years, the number of different communications vendors with which a typical organization works with will be reduced by at least 50 percent. This change is driven by increases in the capability of application servers and the general shift of communications applications to common off-the-shelf server and operating systems. As this occurs, formerly distinct markets, each with distinct vendors, converge, resulting in massive consolidation in the communications industry. Organizations must build careful, detailed plans for when each category of communications function is replaced or converged, coupling this step with the prior completion of appropriate administrative team convergence.

Business Intelligence. Business Intelligence (BI), the top technology priority in Gartner’s 2008 CIO survey, can have a direct positive impact on a company’s business performance, dramatically improving its ability to accomplish its mission by making smarter decisions at every level of the business from corporate strategy to operational processes. BI is particularly strategic because it is directed toward business managers and knowledge workers who make up the pool of thinkers and decision makers that are tasked with running, growing and transforming the business. Tools that let these users make faster, better and more-informed decisions are particularly valuable in a difficult business environment.

Green IT. Shifting to more efficient products and approaches can allow for more equipment to fit within an energy footprint, or to fit into a previously filled center. Regulations are multiplying and have the potential to seriously constrain companies in building data centers, as the effect of power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under scrutiny. Organizations should consider regulations and have alternative plans for data center and capacity growth.

“A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. Companies should evaluate these technologies and adjust based on their industry need, unique business needs, technology adoption model and other factors.”

Good news for credit crunch squeezed CIOs: the price of enterprise web 2.0 tools is set to plummet.

 

This is an interesting article from http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-241005.html
According to a new report by Forrester analyst G Oliver Young, the average deal size for web 2.0 tools including blogs, wikis, social networking and enterprise RSS is set to fall over the coming five years, despite an increase in the average number of licenses per business.

The decline in pricing comes on the back of an increasing communization of such software, bundling and subsumption--the inclusion of enterprise 2.0 features into vendors' existing products, negating the need for new standalone offerings.

The report said: "Traditional software vendors have moved aggressively in the direction of web 2.0 software; however, few are offering standalone products. Instead, most, like Microsoft and SAP, are rolling web 2.0 features into existing software packages; in many cases, they are providing the technology at no extra cost … many will make use of them and offset another purchase in the process."

Social networking will see a dramatic decline in pricing, with the cost declining by more than 50 per cent.

"Specialized tools that focus on alumni networks, new employee orientation, and cross-department collaboration may continue to command price premiums, but generally - without significant functional advances in these tools - Forrester is not optimistic: we expect average deployment spend to fall by more than half to $15,300 per customer over the next five years," the report added.

A price drop in blogging will see the software making the smallest dent in CIOs' budgets of all enterprise 2.0 tools. The average cost of a deployment - $14,100 in 2007 - will fall to $6,500 by 2012.

Wikis, too, will see a price drop - from last year's average deployment cost of $16,000 to $7,400 by 2013, with new open source and software-as-a-service entrants into the wiki market helping to drive down the average cost, despite an increased adoption among enterprises.

Meanwhile, the cost of podcast syndication software, enterprise RSS and widgets are also expected to decline over the long term. The only enterprise 2.0 tool to buck the trend is the mashups, where prices will double as the market matures and the technology breaks out of its traditional heartland of the IT department and is taken up by the business at large.

Who will benefit from these plunging prices? The usual roster of software heavyweights looks likely.

"CIOs will look to large incumbent vendors to provide web 2.0 features and functionality to their enterprise over the next five years," the report noted.

However, CIOs are still willing to switch their alliances if their enterprise web 2.0 supplier is not doing the job. "This is a huge advantage but not a guaranteed success… do not assume that CIOs will not look elsewhere if your technology is not up to snuff," the research added.

Good news for credit crunch squeezed CIOs: the price of enterprise web 2.0 tools is set to plummet.

 

This is an interesting article from http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-241005.html
According to a new report by Forrester analyst G Oliver Young, the average deal size for web 2.0 tools including blogs, wikis, social networking and enterprise RSS is set to fall over the coming five years, despite an increase in the average number of licenses per business.

The decline in pricing comes on the back of an increasing communization of such software, bundling and subsumption--the inclusion of enterprise 2.0 features into vendors' existing products, negating the need for new standalone offerings.

The report said: "Traditional software vendors have moved aggressively in the direction of web 2.0 software; however, few are offering standalone products. Instead, most, like Microsoft and SAP, are rolling web 2.0 features into existing software packages; in many cases, they are providing the technology at no extra cost … many will make use of them and offset another purchase in the process."

Social networking will see a dramatic decline in pricing, with the cost declining by more than 50 per cent.

"Specialized tools that focus on alumni networks, new employee orientation, and cross-department collaboration may continue to command price premiums, but generally - without significant functional advances in these tools - Forrester is not optimistic: we expect average deployment spend to fall by more than half to $15,300 per customer over the next five years," the report added.

A price drop in blogging will see the software making the smallest dent in CIOs' budgets of all enterprise 2.0 tools. The average cost of a deployment - $14,100 in 2007 - will fall to $6,500 by 2012.

Wikis, too, will see a price drop - from last year's average deployment cost of $16,000 to $7,400 by 2013, with new open source and software-as-a-service entrants into the wiki market helping to drive down the average cost, despite an increased adoption among enterprises.

Meanwhile, the cost of podcast syndication software, enterprise RSS and widgets are also expected to decline over the long term. The only enterprise 2.0 tool to buck the trend is the mashups, where prices will double as the market matures and the technology breaks out of its traditional heartland of the IT department and is taken up by the business at large.

Who will benefit from these plunging prices? The usual roster of software heavyweights looks likely.

"CIOs will look to large incumbent vendors to provide web 2.0 features and functionality to their enterprise over the next five years," the report noted.

However, CIOs are still willing to switch their alliances if their enterprise web 2.0 supplier is not doing the job. "This is a huge advantage but not a guaranteed success… do not assume that CIOs will not look elsewhere if your technology is not up to snuff," the research added.

Good news for credit crunch squeezed CIOs: the price of enterprise web 2.0 tools is set to plummet.

 

This is an interesting article from http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-241005.html
According to a new report by Forrester analyst G Oliver Young, the average deal size for web 2.0 tools including blogs, wikis, social networking and enterprise RSS is set to fall over the coming five years, despite an increase in the average number of licenses per business.

The decline in pricing comes on the back of an increasing communization of such software, bundling and subsumption--the inclusion of enterprise 2.0 features into vendors' existing products, negating the need for new standalone offerings.

The report said: "Traditional software vendors have moved aggressively in the direction of web 2.0 software; however, few are offering standalone products. Instead, most, like Microsoft and SAP, are rolling web 2.0 features into existing software packages; in many cases, they are providing the technology at no extra cost … many will make use of them and offset another purchase in the process."

Social networking will see a dramatic decline in pricing, with the cost declining by more than 50 per cent.

"Specialized tools that focus on alumni networks, new employee orientation, and cross-department collaboration may continue to command price premiums, but generally - without significant functional advances in these tools - Forrester is not optimistic: we expect average deployment spend to fall by more than half to $15,300 per customer over the next five years," the report added.

A price drop in blogging will see the software making the smallest dent in CIOs' budgets of all enterprise 2.0 tools. The average cost of a deployment - $14,100 in 2007 - will fall to $6,500 by 2012.

Wikis, too, will see a price drop - from last year's average deployment cost of $16,000 to $7,400 by 2013, with new open source and software-as-a-service entrants into the wiki market helping to drive down the average cost, despite an increased adoption among enterprises.

Meanwhile, the cost of podcast syndication software, enterprise RSS and widgets are also expected to decline over the long term. The only enterprise 2.0 tool to buck the trend is the mashups, where prices will double as the market matures and the technology breaks out of its traditional heartland of the IT department and is taken up by the business at large.

Who will benefit from these plunging prices? The usual roster of software heavyweights looks likely.

"CIOs will look to large incumbent vendors to provide web 2.0 features and functionality to their enterprise over the next five years," the report noted.

However, CIOs are still willing to switch their alliances if their enterprise web 2.0 supplier is not doing the job. "This is a huge advantage but not a guaranteed success… do not assume that CIOs will not look elsewhere if your technology is not up to snuff," the research added.

How do you maximise the Value of IT to the Business? This is a question being asked by the CIO Executive Council. They have developed a IT Value Matrix that illustrates the principles and practices to essential to creating, identifying and communicating IT's value to the enterprise.

It can be downloaded at www.cioexecutivecouncil.com/it_value or below

ITValueMatrix (1953 KB)

Its "Enduring principles of IT" below are a good general guideline and tie in with our philosophy and approach at Bua Consulting:

"

1. The primary goal of IT is to align with major enterprise objectives. Every technology initiative must be tied in a provable way with business value.
2. Because all major business initiatives are dependent upon technology, the CIO must have a voice at the table at which key business decisions are made.
3. With technology at the intersection of a business, the CIO has the responsibility to understand a business's complexities, influence executive peers, and present technology strategy in terms the business can understand.
4. Technology leaders are agents of change. Transition is our stable state.
5. Communication and relationship building are equally as important to IT leadership as technology skills.
6. Successful technology leadership must strike a balance between competing forces: Short v's long term value, technology v's business focus, leading v's enabling.
7. The Cio is responsible for cultivating technology leaership at all levels of the organisation. "

 

How do you maximise the Value of IT to the Business? This is a question being asked by the CIO Executive Council. They have developed a IT Value Matrix that illustrates the principles and practices to essential to creating, identifying and communicating IT's value to the enterprise.

It can be downloaded at www.cioexecutivecouncil.com/it_value or below

ITValueMatrix (1953 KB)

Its "Enduring principles of IT" below are a good general guideline and tie in with our philosophy and approach at Bua Consulting:

"

1. The primary goal of IT is to align with major enterprise objectives. Every technology initiative must be tied in a provable way with business value.
2. Because all major business initiatives are dependent upon technology, the CIO must have a voice at the table at which key business decisions are made.
3. With technology at the intersection of a business, the CIO has the responsibility to understand a business's complexities, influence executive peers, and present technology strategy in terms the business can understand.
4. Technology leaders are agents of change. Transition is our stable state.
5. Communication and relationship building are equally as important to IT leadership as technology skills.
6. Successful technology leadership must strike a balance between competing forces: Short v's long term value, technology v's business focus, leading v's enabling.
7. The Cio is responsible for cultivating technology leaership at all levels of the organisation. "

 

How do you maximise the Value of IT to the Business? This is a question being asked by the CIO Executive Council. They have developed a IT Value Matrix that illustrates the principles and practices to essential to creating, identifying and communicating IT's value to the enterprise.

It can be downloaded at www.cioexecutivecouncil.com/it_value or below

ITValueMatrix (1953 KB)

Its "Enduring principles of IT" below are a good general guideline and tie in with our philosophy and approach at Bua Consulting:

"

1. The primary goal of IT is to align with major enterprise objectives. Every technology initiative must be tied in a provable way with business value.
2. Because all major business initiatives are dependent upon technology, the CIO must have a voice at the table at which key business decisions are made.
3. With technology at the intersection of a business, the CIO has the responsibility to understand a business's complexities, influence executive peers, and present technology strategy in terms the business can understand.
4. Technology leaders are agents of change. Transition is our stable state.
5. Communication and relationship building are equally as important to IT leadership as technology skills.
6. Successful technology leadership must strike a balance between competing forces: Short v's long term value, technology v's business focus, leading v's enabling.
7. The Cio is responsible for cultivating technology leaership at all levels of the organisation. "