Web 2.0: Quick Software Development & Issues with changing Operational Process

During my conversation with Roger (his blog :  Technological Winter) on certain Web 2.0 companies, I asked Roger what stops a web 1.0 company to quickly adopt to a web 2.0 feature? Roger had a perfect answer: Because Web 1.0 companies are built in such a way that they can’t become web 2.0 in record time as there are issues involved in shifting to a new operational process.

That was a perfect insight of why new players in Web 2.0 have stormed market place and giving web 1.0 companies run for their money.

However as web progresses to next phase (some call it Second life and some call it web 3.0), I think some web 2.0 company will wash away because they are trapped in the same issue that web 1.0 company faced!! That is they had developed the software quick and dirty way which is tightly coupled with an operational process.

Let’s take an example: A social networking hub web 2.0 companies has launched successfully and attracting great community around it, the software has all web 2.0 features like community content, trackback, people collaborate and share information online. So the software solution is aligned with the trend and perfectly meeting with the business requirement. Let’s say the web has transitioned to Second life/Web 3.0 and operational process, user’s preference and way of doing things has changed which the present software solution can’t handle!! So the company is stuck to be washed away.

This is where Software architecture matters, if the web 2.0 solution is designed using practices like
**”Loose coupling” (the  subsystem must be loosley coupled and easily replacable)
**”Behaviour aspect separation” (User or community behaviour must be captured separately and designed to evolve with time)
**”business process workflow”(you get these as open source using JBoss JBPM, in 30 minutes we can create a operational workflow),
**”Framework based approach” (solution must use frameworks which are evolving in community like Source Forge, Rails, etc ..and making it easier to adopt new approaches)
**”Plug and play” (solution must have open interface to plug any new feature, like widgets..an example)
**”Easy migration” and many other factors

Then it becomes easier for the software solution to accommodate any operational changes in the future. Though it makes sense to launch a quick solution in marketplace to gain FMA (First mover advantage) but I think it must be replaced by a scalable solution sooner based on the above mentioned practices. With this, your web 2.0 solution can easily transform to next phase of innovation in web.

Some blog articles on Second life, web 3.0 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
http://www.personalizemedia.com/index.php/2006/08/27/virtual-worlds-web-30-and-portable-profiles/
http://yuri.typepad.com/yuri_blog/web_30/index.html