Principles and Best Practices: O'Reilly Radar
Principles and Best Practices: O'Reilly Radar
Web 2.0
Principles and Best Practices
John Musser
with Tim O’Reilly
& the O’Reilly Radar Team
Contents
Executive Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Endnotes.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
O’Reilly Media Inc.
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 applica-
tion. 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 ini-
tially 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 into the enterprise space.
Two years ago we launched the Web 2.0 Conference to evangelize Web 2.0 and
to get the industry to take notice of the seismic shift we were experiencing. This
report is for those who are ready to respond to that shift. It digs beneath the hype
and buzzwords, and teaches the underlying rules of Web 2.0—what they are, how
successful Web 2.0 companies are applying them, and how to apply them to your
own business. It’s a practical resource that provides essential tools for competing
and thriving in today’s emerging business world. I hope it inspires you to embrace
the Web 2.0 opportunity.
Web 2.0 is here today, yet its vast disruptive impact is just beginning. More than just
the latest technology buzzword, it’s a transformative force that’s propelling companies
across all industries toward a new way of doing business. Those who act on the Web
2.0 opportunity stand to gain an early-mover advantage in their markets.
O’Reilly Media has identified eight core patterns that are keys to understanding and
navigating the Web 2.0 era. This report details the problems each pattern solves or
opportunities it creates, and provides a thorough analysis of market trends, proven
best practices, case studies of industry leaders, and tools for hands-on self-assessment.
To compete and thrive in today’s Web 2.0 world, technology decision-makers—
including executives, product strategists, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders—need
to act now, before the market settles into a new equilibrium. This report shows you
how.
What’s causing this change? Consider the following raw demographic and techno-
logical drivers:
• One billion people around the globe now have access to the Internet
• Mobile devices outnumber desktop computers by a factor of two
• Nearly 50 percent of all U.S. Internet access is now via always-on broadband
connections
Combine drivers with the fundamental laws of social networks and lessons from the
Web’s first decade, and:
• In the first quarter of 2006, MySpace.com signed up 280,000 new users each
day and had the second most Internet traffic
• By the second quarter of 2006, 50 million blogs were created—new ones
were added at a rate of two per second
• In 2005, eBay conducted 8 billion API-based web services transactions
These trends manifest themselves under a variety of guises, names, and technologies:
social computing, user-generated content, software as a service, podcasting, blogs,
and the read–write web. Taken together, they are Web 2.0, the next-generation, user-
driven, intelligent web. This report is a guide to understanding the principles of Web
2.0 today, providing you with the information and tools you need to implement Web
2.0 concepts in your own products and organization.
Executive Summary 4
Perpetual Beta When devices and programs are connected to the Internet, applications are
no longer software artifacts, they are ongoing services. This has significant
impact on the entire software development and delivery process. Therefore,
don’t package up new features into monolithic releases, but instead add
features on a regular basis as part of the normal user experience. Engage
your users to be real-time testers, and structure the service to reveal how
people use your product.
Benefits
Figure 33: Examples of beta services • Faster time to market
• Reduced risk
• Closer relationship with customers
• Real-time data to make quantifiable decisions
• Increased responsiveness
Best Practices
• Release early and release often. This edict of the open source development
model61 is now a critical success factor for Internet-based software. Use agile
and iterative development methodologies to package bug fixes and enhance-
ments into incremental releases that respond to user feedback. Use auto-
mated testing and a rigorous build and deploy process to streamline QA and
release management. eBay deploys a new version of its service approximately
every two weeks. Flickr photo-sharing service took this even further, deploy-
ing hundreds of incremental releases during an 18 month period from Feb-
ruary 2004 through August 2005. Compare this with the traditional product
release cycle as exemplified by Microsoft Windows (see Figure 34).
It’s not just new products that can benefit from this approach: Yahoo! Mes-
senger went from 1 release every 18 months to 4 releases per year.62
1985 2007
2004 2006
Figure 34: Flickr versus Microsoft release cycles
product itself. As with A/B testing, the data Shadow Applications Requirements Process
Shadow Applications
Shadow applications are private, internal-facing tools built to monitor and profile
public-facing applications. They spot what is or isn’t succeeding and ultimately drive
improvements. Shadow apps don’t have to be large, just meaningful. For example,
Flickr developed a “Loneliest Users” report that allowed it to identify users who were
not inviting friends to the service. Flickr then added itself as a contact for those users
and taught them how to make better use of the service.
Perpetual Beta 6
• Incrementally create new products. New and existing products should
evolve through rapid releases, user feedback, and instrumentation. Experi-
ment with new product ideas through planned, but incremental processes.
Google has launched some of its most successful products including Google
Maps and GMail following this approach. The Google Maps beta was pub-
licly launched in February 2005 and stayed in beta for eight months. During
that time, Google gained significant feedback from users, incrementally added
new features, and gained valuable early-mover advantage, which put it far
ahead of slower competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo! (see Figure 36).
April 2005
February 8, 2005 Satellite Images June 2005 October 6, 2005
Google Maps Launch Added API Added Beta Label Removed
Misconceptions
• User testing replaces quality assurance. Do not use the perpetual beta as
an excuse for poor quality, stability, or a lack of accountability. This risks
alienating and losing valuable customers. Engaging users as real-time testers
is about validating and refining functionality, not quality.
• Versions no longer exist. Users may no longer be aware of versions but
underneath the covers they are as vital as ever. Some companies with
extremely short development cycles “ship timestamps, not versions,” yet
source code control is used for both. Development tools need to support
high-quality rapid software development; the more frequent release cycles
require disciplined build, deployment, and support processes.
Perpetual Beta 8
Enterprise 2.0 Recommendations
• Seek suitable enterprise process models. Look for development and
operational models that suit your organization’s culture but move toward the
perpetual beta. On the development side use agile, iterative approaches. On
the operations side, consider best practice-centered models, such as the IT
Infrastructure Library (ITIL).65
• Start with pilot projects. As with any new approach, begin with select proj-
ects and teams to learn adoption processes.
Related Patterns
• Lightweight Models and Cost-Effective Scalability. Agile software-devel-
opment techniques are ideally suited to support rapid release cycles, so they
have a readiness for change. Integrate lightweight development and deploy-
ment processes as complements to the perpetual beta. Combine this with
low-cost, commodity components to build a scalable, fault-tolerant opera-
tional base.
• Innovation in Assembly. The perpetual beta is the process underlying the
development of the web platform and it relies on many of the same core
competencies.