31. Understand and apply Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA). The Web has a certain way that it works best and
understanding how HTTP works at a deep level is vital for getting the most out of the unique power that the Internet has to
offer. But HTTP is just the beginning of this way of thinking about the Web and how to use its intrinsic power to be successful
with with it. This includes knowing why and how link structure, network effects, SEO, API ecosystems, mashups, and other
aspects of the Web are key to making your application flourish. It's important to note that your internal application
architecture is likely not fundamentally Web-oriented itself (because most software development platforms are not Weboriented)
and you'll have to be diligent in enabling a WOA model in your Web-facing product design. The bottom line: Non-
Web-oriented products tend not to fare very well by failing to take advantage of the very things that have made the Web itself
so successful.
32. Online products that build upon enterprise systems should use open SOA principles. Large companies
building their first 2.0 products will often use existing IT systems and infrastructure that already have the data and
functionality they need. Although they will often decouple and cache them for scalability and performance, the connectedness
itself is best done using the principles of SOA. That doesn't necessarily mean traditional SOA products and standards,
although it could, often using more Web-oriented methods works better. What does this really mean? Stay away from
proprietary integration methods and use the most open models you can find, understanding that the back-end of most online
products will be consumed by more than just your front-end (see API discussion above for a fuller exploration).
33. Strategically use feeds and syndication to enable deep content distribution. This is another way to use Jakob's
Law to increase unintended uses and consumption of an application from other sites and ecosystems. Feeds enable many
beneficial use cases such as near real-time perception of fresh data in your application from across the Web in feed readers,
syndication sites, aggregators, and elsewhere. Like many other techniques here, knee-jerk use of feeds won't drive much
additional usage and adoption, but carefully designing feeds to achieve objectives like driving new customers back to the
application directly from the feed can make a big difference. Failing to offer useful feeds is one of the easiest ways to miss out
on business opportunities while giving your competitors an edge.
34. Build on the shoulders of giants; don't recreate what you can source from elsewhere. Today's Internet
application usually require too much functionality to be cost-effectively built by a single effort. Typically, an application will
actually source dozens of components and external functionality from 3rd parties. This could be off-the-shelf libraries or it
could be the live use of another site's API, the latter which has become one of the most interesting new business models in the
Web 2.0 era. The general rule of thumb: Unless it's a strategic capability of your application, try hard to source it from
elsewhere before you build it; 3rd parties sources are already more hardened, robust, less expensive, and lower defect than any
initial code could that you could produce. Get used to doing a rapid build vs. buy evaluation for each major component of your
application.
35. Register the user as soon as possible. One of the most valuable aspects of your onine product will be the registered
user base. Make sure you application gives them a good reason to register and that the process is as painless as possible. Each
additional step or input field will increase abandonment of the process and you can always ask for more information later.
Consider makingO pe nI D the default login, with your local user database a 2nd tier, to make the process even easier and more
comfortable for the user.
36. Explicitly enable your users to co-develop the product. I call this concept Product Development 2.0 and it's one of
the most potent ways to create a market-leading product by engaging the full capabilities of the network. The richest source of
creative input you will have is your audience of passionate, engaged users. This can be enabled via simple feedback forms,
harvested from surveys and online community forums, via services such asGe tSa tis f ac t io n, or as the ingredients to mashups
and user generated software. As you'll see below, you can even open the code base or provide a plug-in approach/open APIs to
allow motivated users and 3rd parties to contribute working functionality. Whichever of these you do, you'll find that the
innovation and direction to be key to making your product the richest and most robust it can be. A significant percentage of
the top online products in the world take advantage of this key 2.0 technique.
37. Provide the legal and collaborative foundations for others to build on your data and platform. A good place
to start is to license as much of your product as you can via Creative Commons or another licensing model that is less
restrictive and more open than copyright or patents. Unfortunately, this is something for which 20th century business models
around law, legal precedent, and traditional product design are ill-equipped to support and you'll have to look at what other
market leaders are doing with IP licensing that is working. Giving others explicit permission up-front to repurpose and reuse
your data and functionality in theirs can be essential to drive market share and success. Another good method is to let your
users license their data as well and Flickr is famous for doing this. It's important to understand that this is now the Some
Right Reserved era, not the All Rights Reserved era. So openly license what your have for others to use; the general rule of
thumb is that the more you give away, the more you'll get back, as long as you have a means of exercising control. This is why
open APIs have become as popular as they have, since they are essentially "IP-as-a-service" and poorly behaving
partner/licensees can be dealt with quickly and easily.
38. Design your product to build a strong network effect. The concept of the network effect is something I've covered
here extensively before and it's one of the most important items in this list. At their most basic, Web 2.0 applications are
successful because they explicitly leverage network effects successfully. This is the underlying reason why most of the leading
Internet companies got so big, so fast. Measuring network effects and driving them remains one of the most poorly
understood yet critical aspects of competing successfully online. The short version: It's extremely hard to fight an established
network effect (particularly because research has shown them to be highly exponential). Instead, find a class of data or a blue
ocean market segment for your product and its data to serve.
39. Know your Web 2.0 design patterns and business models. The fundamental principles of Web 2.0 were all
identifid and collected together for a good reason. Each principle is something that must be considered carefully in the design
of your product given how they can magnify your network effect. Your development team must understand them and know
why they're important, especially what outcomes they will drive in your product and business. It's the same withE nt erp r is e
2.0 products: There is another, related set of design principles (which I've summarized as FLATNESSES) that makes them
successful as well. And as with everything on this list, you don't apply 2.0 principles reflexively; they need to be intelligently
used for good reason.
40. Integrate a coherent social experience into your product. Social systems tend to have a much more pronounced
network effect (Reed's Law) than non-social systems. Though no site should be social without a good reason, it turns out that
most applications will benefit from having a social experience. What does this mean in practice? In general, social
applications let users perceive what other users are doing and actively encourage them to interact, work together, and drive
participation through social encouragement and competition. There is a lot of art to the design of the social architecture of an
online product, but there is also an increasing amount of science. Again, you can look at what successful sites are doing with
their social interaction but good places to start are with user profiles, friends lists, activity streams, status messages,s oc ial
media such as blogs and microsharing, and it goes up from there. Understand how Facebook Connect and other open social
network efforts such as OpenSocial can help you expand your social experience.
Next
understanding how HTTP works at a deep level is vital for getting the most out of the unique power that the Internet has to
offer. But HTTP is just the beginning of this way of thinking about the Web and how to use its intrinsic power to be successful
with with it. This includes knowing why and how link structure, network effects, SEO, API ecosystems, mashups, and other
aspects of the Web are key to making your application flourish. It's important to note that your internal application
architecture is likely not fundamentally Web-oriented itself (because most software development platforms are not Weboriented)
and you'll have to be diligent in enabling a WOA model in your Web-facing product design. The bottom line: Non-
Web-oriented products tend not to fare very well by failing to take advantage of the very things that have made the Web itself
so successful.
32. Online products that build upon enterprise systems should use open SOA principles. Large companies
building their first 2.0 products will often use existing IT systems and infrastructure that already have the data and
functionality they need. Although they will often decouple and cache them for scalability and performance, the connectedness
itself is best done using the principles of SOA. That doesn't necessarily mean traditional SOA products and standards,
although it could, often using more Web-oriented methods works better. What does this really mean? Stay away from
proprietary integration methods and use the most open models you can find, understanding that the back-end of most online
products will be consumed by more than just your front-end (see API discussion above for a fuller exploration).
33. Strategically use feeds and syndication to enable deep content distribution. This is another way to use Jakob's
Law to increase unintended uses and consumption of an application from other sites and ecosystems. Feeds enable many
beneficial use cases such as near real-time perception of fresh data in your application from across the Web in feed readers,
syndication sites, aggregators, and elsewhere. Like many other techniques here, knee-jerk use of feeds won't drive much
additional usage and adoption, but carefully designing feeds to achieve objectives like driving new customers back to the
application directly from the feed can make a big difference. Failing to offer useful feeds is one of the easiest ways to miss out
on business opportunities while giving your competitors an edge.
34. Build on the shoulders of giants; don't recreate what you can source from elsewhere. Today's Internet
application usually require too much functionality to be cost-effectively built by a single effort. Typically, an application will
actually source dozens of components and external functionality from 3rd parties. This could be off-the-shelf libraries or it
could be the live use of another site's API, the latter which has become one of the most interesting new business models in the
Web 2.0 era. The general rule of thumb: Unless it's a strategic capability of your application, try hard to source it from
elsewhere before you build it; 3rd parties sources are already more hardened, robust, less expensive, and lower defect than any
initial code could that you could produce. Get used to doing a rapid build vs. buy evaluation for each major component of your
application.
35. Register the user as soon as possible. One of the most valuable aspects of your onine product will be the registered
user base. Make sure you application gives them a good reason to register and that the process is as painless as possible. Each
additional step or input field will increase abandonment of the process and you can always ask for more information later.
Consider makingO pe nI D the default login, with your local user database a 2nd tier, to make the process even easier and more
comfortable for the user.
36. Explicitly enable your users to co-develop the product. I call this concept Product Development 2.0 and it's one of
the most potent ways to create a market-leading product by engaging the full capabilities of the network. The richest source of
creative input you will have is your audience of passionate, engaged users. This can be enabled via simple feedback forms,
harvested from surveys and online community forums, via services such asGe tSa tis f ac t io n, or as the ingredients to mashups
and user generated software. As you'll see below, you can even open the code base or provide a plug-in approach/open APIs to
allow motivated users and 3rd parties to contribute working functionality. Whichever of these you do, you'll find that the
innovation and direction to be key to making your product the richest and most robust it can be. A significant percentage of
the top online products in the world take advantage of this key 2.0 technique.
37. Provide the legal and collaborative foundations for others to build on your data and platform. A good place
to start is to license as much of your product as you can via Creative Commons or another licensing model that is less
restrictive and more open than copyright or patents. Unfortunately, this is something for which 20th century business models
around law, legal precedent, and traditional product design are ill-equipped to support and you'll have to look at what other
market leaders are doing with IP licensing that is working. Giving others explicit permission up-front to repurpose and reuse
your data and functionality in theirs can be essential to drive market share and success. Another good method is to let your
users license their data as well and Flickr is famous for doing this. It's important to understand that this is now the Some
Right Reserved era, not the All Rights Reserved era. So openly license what your have for others to use; the general rule of
thumb is that the more you give away, the more you'll get back, as long as you have a means of exercising control. This is why
open APIs have become as popular as they have, since they are essentially "IP-as-a-service" and poorly behaving
partner/licensees can be dealt with quickly and easily.
38. Design your product to build a strong network effect. The concept of the network effect is something I've covered
here extensively before and it's one of the most important items in this list. At their most basic, Web 2.0 applications are
successful because they explicitly leverage network effects successfully. This is the underlying reason why most of the leading
Internet companies got so big, so fast. Measuring network effects and driving them remains one of the most poorly
understood yet critical aspects of competing successfully online. The short version: It's extremely hard to fight an established
network effect (particularly because research has shown them to be highly exponential). Instead, find a class of data or a blue
ocean market segment for your product and its data to serve.
39. Know your Web 2.0 design patterns and business models. The fundamental principles of Web 2.0 were all
identifid and collected together for a good reason. Each principle is something that must be considered carefully in the design
of your product given how they can magnify your network effect. Your development team must understand them and know
why they're important, especially what outcomes they will drive in your product and business. It's the same withE nt erp r is e
2.0 products: There is another, related set of design principles (which I've summarized as FLATNESSES) that makes them
successful as well. And as with everything on this list, you don't apply 2.0 principles reflexively; they need to be intelligently
used for good reason.
40. Integrate a coherent social experience into your product. Social systems tend to have a much more pronounced
network effect (Reed's Law) than non-social systems. Though no site should be social without a good reason, it turns out that
most applications will benefit from having a social experience. What does this mean in practice? In general, social
applications let users perceive what other users are doing and actively encourage them to interact, work together, and drive
participation through social encouragement and competition. There is a lot of art to the design of the social architecture of an
online product, but there is also an increasing amount of science. Again, you can look at what successful sites are doing with
their social interaction but good places to start are with user profiles, friends lists, activity streams, status messages,s oc ial
media such as blogs and microsharing, and it goes up from there. Understand how Facebook Connect and other open social
network efforts such as OpenSocial can help you expand your social experience.
Next
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