Web 2.0 Talk – Leveraging the Network

Last Thursday I gave a talk about Web 2.0 at the Greater Boston Chapter of the ACM. The Chapter is a non-profit educational and scientific society of computer professionals in the Boston area. About 45 60 people were there and we had a great discussion around such interesting topics as recommendation systems and the privacy issues surrounding web-based services like Google’s Gmail and Amazon’s account information.

Here are my slides (added a few since the talk). Web 2.0 – Leveraging the Network (pdf)

Major talking points

(the slides contain a little history and examples/supporting information for each)

• The home page is no longer the most important page on your site.
• The information architecture that people use to find your content is, increasingly, not yours.
• Each feature added to an application is more to think about – for everyone.
• Folksonomies are a way for users to map their own, familiar vocabulary to your alien one.
• Words are the currency of the Web. Spend the most time on your words.
• Seducible moments are those increasingly rare moments when you can talk to your users in an appropriate context.
• Recommendation systems are a forced move.
• Users want control.
• Users appreciate tools that help them make their own well-informed decisions.
• The best software models human behavior.
• Links model how users value content, and are only the start…
• Sometimes it is easier to design for yourself than others.
• There is always an opportunity for a better interface to data.
• All things being equal, faster interfaces allow for more innovation.
• Most people are willing to trade their personal information for good service.
• As choices grow, so does the importance of learnability.
• Redesigns are dead.
• Network effects are rare, and killer.
• Network effects work in the opposite way for teams building software.
• Personal value precedes network value
• People rarely do things for the “good of the network”
• Del.icio.us, though providing very cool tagging features, is mostly about a single person remembering items for later.
• “The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous”