As businesses migrate from ad hoc Web 2 use toward more formal approaches, welcoming O’Reilly’s “small is the new big” adage with open arms, it’s essential to deliver not just technologically but to adapt corporate models for more scalable and cost-effective change. While Web 1 heralded convoluted mishmashes of information and ‘at you’ data models, we’ve resurfaced not just with a design epiphany of ‘less is more’, but from a business perspective; the fastest way to positive Web reform is to focus upon a single service (expertly) and integrate with an ecosystem of other manipulable features. From the development of search engines, the emergence of rich user experiences, SaaS and cloud computing, among the most radical is the open source movement.

In a burgeoning era of network effects and social business models, there are a host of fundamental transitions that focus open concepts of open collaboration and open information sharing. These are set to leverage not just social networks, but businesses who have heretofore underutilized the Internet’s incredibly viable economic resources. Open source in the enterprise is unsurprisingly attractive – low costs, easy access, expansive license terms, and considerably lessens budget pressures where businesses spend a significant portion of IT expenditures on proprietary software, leading to desire to out-source.

How to Scale Cost-Effectively

Budding businesses especially desire immediacy; innovation surrounding a set task, open and regularly updated interfaces, system integration and richer customer relationships, all of which is suddenly achievable by web services like Salesforce.com, WaveMaker and 3tera. Each of these cloud-computing options are a far leaner approach to business financing and product development for a series of reasons, including but not limited to:

  • No more large development teams required
  • Be up-and-running within weeks
  • Focus on innovation, not traditional restraints (i.e. large upfront capital, shoestring budgets, people and hardware resources)
  • Faster ROI with reduced cost and time investment
  • Greater business adaptability and scalability.

Salesforce.com clientele

Sophisticated web applications are made possible with small creative teams, product developers and tight schedules, where the largest issue becomes proper scaling of future growth via agile development schemes and, at its heart, keeping up with the emerging trends. In an environment where so much is suddenly available across the globe, major web applications, commercial sites, even social networks can fall to the wayside where they fail to bolster and cater to competitive consumer demands (Friendster and MySpace are pretty poignant examples in this case).

Pick of the Week: Threadless, an Ecommerce Website

Let’s have a look at what can easily be considered cutting-edge Web 2 agile economic development – Threadless.com is home to gifted designers around the globe who sign up to develop patterns for shirts that are then sold internationally, splitting a small portion of product revenue per sale. Its sophisticated manipulation of social networking tools – from blogs, forums, rating and scoring systems, personalised banner creation, regular competitions, clubs, gift certificates etc – makes the store internationally renouned for both quality and connectedness. It leverages already familiar social tools for ease of use, and utilizes only viral word-of-mouth for promotion with evident success.

The best part? It all began with two designers back in 2000 (details of which can be found here, excellent read) , who have today accumulated tens of thousands of top designer contributons with a two dozen strong maintenance and administrative team. Their strategy to provide highly transparent product decisions, and making open collaboration central to the business model, really served to bolster long-term consumer relationships and, consequently, security for future growth. Kudos to Threadless, where competitive innovation leverages ‘doing more with less’ in every sense.