Twitter: Lightweight models and cost-effective scalability

As we are covering the web 2.0 patterns, this is the last pattern with is Lightweight models and cost-effective scalability. The model for web 1.0 companies was “get big fast”. However, with web 2.0 the business model changes to be “small is the new big” so businesses are no longer depend on large development team and budget to start or run their business successfully.  This new model is Lightweight models and cost-effective scalability which referred to “Doing more with less” is the strategy to deliver products to market faster and cheaper without sacrificing future growth.

Twitter

My example for this week pattern is “Twitter”,  one of the social networking applications which is grown rapidly in short period of time.

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows users to post, send and read messages, answer questions and share information by sending short-text messages 140 characters in length which called “tweets”. Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey in March 2006 and it’s published in July at the same year and it has grown up since May with the first tweet sent by Jack Dorsey “just setting up my twttr”.

In 2009 twitter become the third highest social networking website. According to Twitter, it had 400,000 tweets in 2007 and in June 2010 the tweets increased to 65 million per day. Moreover, twitter offer a simple API-system which makes it very easy for other web services and applications to integrate them. As result, the company recorded over 70,000 registered applications.

2010

Twitter financing and revenue model, this application has huge amount of funding and revenues even without selling ads. $35 million was the funding in 2009 and the revenues were $400,000 and $4 million in the third and fourth quarter respectively in 2009. IN mid 2010, they started selling ads, the revenue increased to $45 million. In addition, the value of Twitter in March 2011 is $7.8 billion.

The question for this week pattern is, what do you think about the advertisements on Twitter?

Read Full Post »

ArtFire: Leveraging the long tail

Many people now are taking the advantage of the internet to make products more available via online market. Web 2.0 applications show long tail as a ground for application, research and experimentation which uses online business such as E-Bay. What is Leveraging the long tail? It is a term used in marketing, to put it simply, selling a large number of unique items in smaller quantities is more profitable then selling a large quantity of popular items.

ArtFire

One leveraging the long tail examples is ArtFire. What is ArtFire? It is an online marketplace for handmade products designed by artisans around the globe. Their free community is designed for artisans to buy and sell their products.

ArtFire

ArtFire is a marketplace where you can buy and sell handmade arts and crafts. It is a well organized website which makes it easy to use for both sellers and shoppers.

ArtFire provides to the customers a list of markets which called “shop our markets” and it consists of several items. These items are Handmade, Fine Art, Craft Supplies Vintage, Design and media, and each one of them has different range of products such as Accessories, Bags & Purses, Ceramics & Pottery, Business, Craft Supplies, Antiques, Clothing, Animation, etc. In addition, one of the most important features that this application has is the advance search so users can easily search by the item name, seller name and color.  So, the application provides a really wide range of products and the shoppers have a lot of choices to choose and buy any of wide range of niche markets.

Sellers have a great feature which is automatic product feeds by purchasing ads on online social websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Also, each product has images, description, materials have been used, tags to make it easy to reach, blogs so users can find more information about it and post any question they want to ask.

Shoppers also can review, comment and rate a product so they have feedback about each product and seller. Moreover, the users can see price range of the items, how many items have been sold and the location of the sellers. Finally, users can pay by using PayPal or Credit Card and then track their products by using my cart.

So, from the features for this application, would you use ArtFire to sell or buy products? Why?

Read Full Post »

Perpetual Beta

As web 2.0 applications are growing rapidly and many people use it daily in their lives. Application developers try to reduce the risk and make closer relationship with their customers which can be happened by the use of Beta. According to StonyArc “Perpetual beta is actually a software developer term to describe software or a system which never leaves the development stage of beta. In the light of Web 2.0 it just indicates the fact that a developer or community is constantly seeking to improve the software they are releasing”. In addition, the main characteristics of using the concept of perpetual beta are including in the following:

• Trusting users as co-developers
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models. [O’Reilly]

Facebook

Facebook is a good example of the “Perpetual beta” pattern. I’m sure that most of people have used Facebook and they are familiar with the features that this application provides. Shortly, Facebook is a very popular social networking community website which provides its users many different types of features such as users can own page which include their pictures, videos and states. Moreover, users have the ability to share other applications and information with their friends by using the Facebook link.

Facebook

Furthermore, one of the distinguishing characteristics of Facebook application is the state of Perpetual Beta. Facebook is constantly releasing new versions, revisions or updates of their products based on users’ feedback which gives the developers the chance to see the user experience to improve the application easily.

Do you think Facebook needs improvements or releases new services? If not do you think Facebook should not be a beta anymore?

Read Full Post »

Photobucket: Software above the Level of a Single Device

Since the internet is growing very fast, user’s data is increasing rapidly. People use the internet in most of their time so they want to access their data from anywhere at anytime which make their life easier. By providing web 2.0 applications which design to integrate data and services across desktops, mobile devices and Internet server’s users meet their need. According to O’Reilly “Every web application is software above the level of a single device. At minimum, these applications use a client on a local computer and one or more server computers”.

Photobucket

I have been using Photobucket application which is one of the best examples for Software above the Level of a Single Device pattern. What is Photobucket? Photobucket is the premier destination for uploading, downloading, sharing, linking and finding photos, videos and graphics. In addition, users host all their images and videos for free.

Photobucket in iPhone

The users can use Photobucket application for the following:

• Upload all their photos and videos to one place.

Users can store thousands of photos and hours of video in their account.

• Share with family, friends, and their favorite sites.

Users can easily share their photos and videos by email with family and friends. Also, use one-click sharing to share  media on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

• Link their photos and videos anywhere.

Users can copy and paste links to share their photos and videos on any profile, forum, blog or website.

• Use the photo editing features.

Users can add captions, effects and more with easy-to-use photo editor.

Moreover, the developer can add Photobucket features to their application by using the web service API. Finally, users can access Photobucket on their mobile phones such as iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Photobucket is a great web 2.0 application. However, since the web 2.0 is improving very fast and the user needs are increasing Photobucket need to add more features.

So, what features should Photobucket add to the application?

Read Full Post »

Rich User Experiences in HTML5 Image Editor Online

As we covering the web 2.0 patterns this blog explains the fourth pattern which is “Rich User Experiences”. What is Rich User Experiences? It is simply means that how web2.0 applications can replace desktop applications. Web 2.0 applications introduced lightweight programming models concept to the developer community which offers possibilities to create web 2.0 applications with similar elements that are installed in desktop applications.

CloudCanvas

CloudCanvas is one of the best examples for “Rich User Experiences”.  What is CloudCanvas? CloudCanvas is a free online image editing and image creation tool which enables creative people to make digital art, design and other rich media right in the web browser.

CloudCanvas is a free HTML 5 based cloud image editor. This is a fully featured online image editor that allows users to create and save digital media. CloudCanvas uses HTML5 instead of Flash so users should be able to use it on the new technologies such as iPad. CloudCanvas integrates with users Google Docs accounts so that when they save an image edited in CloudCanvas it is saved and accessible in their Google Docs accounts.

CloudCanvas

How dose CloudCanvas work? If you did work with any desktop image editing software then you are already familiar with all of the options that CloudCanvas provide.  Moreover, this tool let users work with vector, bitmap and raster images and for graphics users they can use brushes, paint and other textures available.

The features that CloudCanvas tool provide for the users are include in the following:

• Users can access the application in different platform (computers, iPad).
• Users can share their images.
• This application contains many drawing and design features.
• Beginner and experts users can have fun with CloudCanvas.
• Users can save their images on their Google Docs accounts.
• Users can export images from Google Images and DeviantArt.
• Users can save designs as PNG or SVG files.

Do you think the new web 2.0 application such as CloudCanvas will replace the desktop applications? Why?

Read Full Post »

Innovation in assembly

This blog will discuss the third pattern of web 2.0 application patterns which is Innovation in Assembly. Innovation in Assembly is about using a platform strategy for web 2.0 application.  It simply means that in addition to the fact that the Web 2.0 is about to replace desktop operating systems, web applications are doing the same. The benefit of this platform strategy is to get a better idea of how services are used and attached to other application easily by using API.  API stands for “Application Programming Interface” and is used to allow other developers to use the data and coding from one application on another.

Tropo API is one example of Innovations in assemble pattern. What is Tropo? Tropo makes it simple to build phone, SMS and Instant messaging applications. Users use the web technologies they already know and Tropo’s powerful cloud API to bring real-time communications to their applications.

 

 

How does Tropo work?

The video below explain all the information about how this application works.

 

 

What can you do with Tropo? Tropo adds a few simple communications commands to your favourite programming languages. If users want to create their own application, with such a Tropo application there is no need to learn new languages, wrestle with VoIP software, or learn about telephony. Users just need to host their code with Tropo, or use their existing web server in the language of their choice to active the Tropo features in their own application. These features include make and receive phone calls, use voice recognition, interact over SMS, IM, or Twitter and create conference calls and transcribe calls.

Tropo is an excellent application that allows programmer to add some features to their application with a brief knowledge of programming. This application has many future directions. So, can you see any future directions for this application?

 

Read Full Post »

Data Is the Next “Intel Inside”

This blog will discuss one of the core pattern of Web 2.0 which is “Data Is the Next Intel Inside”.  People were focusing on the features provided by the applications. However, with the increasing web 2.0 applications, data becomes the main source. Simply, “Data Is the Next Intel Inside” means gathering information and creating unique sources.

One of the best examples of this pattern which I have already used is FindTheBest application. FindTheBest is an objective, socially curated comparison engine that allows users to find a topic, compare their options and decide what is best for them. Ultimately, FindTheBest allows users to make faster and more informed decisions by allowing them to easily compare all the available options. This application has a unique strategy to control data.

 

FindTheBest can be used for a huge number of categories such as Entertainment, Business, Education, Technology and etc. the example of the perfect strategy to control data is the technology section. The search engine that can be used in the application help users to save their time. While they search for a product such as eBook Reader they can easily find its information because it displays most of the information of the entire product such as Name, Company, Expert Rating, Screen Size Weight, Memory, Book Capacity and Battery Life. This kind of information will make the decision for users much easier and the data displays in an organized way.

FindTheBest

 

Moreover, FindTheBest application shows the ability of collecting data. When users click on a product, the application will display a comparison chart with specific information which shows a strong strategy that FindTheBest use to collect data. Users can recommend, review and comment about products so that users can decide easily.

FindTheBest

 

The two legal and ethical issues are who owns the data and Copyright. All the content of FindTheBest application and services are owned by the application itself. Moreover, this application protected by copyright laws and requires its users to act seriously when they are using the website content. Copying, distributing, modifying or publicly displaying copyrighted work without permission is a violation of copyright law.

With the strong of the search engine and the strategy of collecting and controlling data FindTheBest application will be one of the best web 2.0 applications which can be used for making quicker and easier decisions.

 

Read Full Post »

Pattern One: Harnessing Collective Intelligence

The first core pattern of Web 2.0 is Harnessing Collective Intelligence which is about creating the content of a web application by users. Users add implicit and explicit data to the application which can be shared and recommended.

 

Upcoming

Upcoming is an example of web 2.0 application that coincidently found and it was as a terrific application.  It does an excellent job of ‘harnessing collective intelligence’ by creating, managing and sharing events. The website is used by a strong community of people from around the world who provide places where they can share information on events that interests them. Upcoming is a social networking website that allows the application users to upload pictures and data about their events. The users have the ability to share information and meet other people who have similar interests.  For example, the users can create groups and make friends. In addition, when users use this application to shear their events such as education event it will clearly lead to increase the number of attending which will enhance sharing knowledge.

The Upcoming website allows users to rate events, write reviews, link to maps, buy tickets and letting the community know if people are going or not which is a great example of explicit participation.

 

Chain Reading

The other example is Chain Reading application, where users can let people know what they are reading, planning on reading, and recommend. Moreover, they can suggest, browse and write book reviews to share their opinions.

Application like Chain Reading shows what is new to the market in terms of books. Also, they often review these new books and discuss whether the book is worth to read or not depends on their opinions. It is an excellent example of how people interact with each other without gaining any profit,instead, it is a great way to share knowledge among diverse society.

The only issue that may Upcoming and Chain Reading applications have is Trust. As long as any user can add events or books to the applications and write a review about them the truthful will be affected. The reason of that is users may add events which are not happening on the real world or they can add non related information about books.

Both Upcoming and Chain Reading are great applications for sharing information. However, nowadays there are many applications have the same idea.

What do you think Upcoming and Chain Reading applications should do to become more popular?

Read Full Post »