mySQL

I’ll be candid and admit that I skimmed some of the more techspeakish sections of this mySQL white paper.

But, I came away from the paper with confidence that mySQL is the database of choice for our project.  It’s great for writing to, reading from, and archiving.  “The web is the platform” and mySQL manages the data to make it work.  Wikipedia, Flickr, Second Life and more use mySQL.

O’Reilly’s web 2.0

This is an excerpt from a mySQL pdf I’ll be posting shortly. Based on O’Reilly’s description of what web 2.0 should be, I think we’re on the right trail.

Maybe you’ve seen this before, but I think that we should reference his article in our presentation.

O’Reilly names the seven characteristics and core competencies of Web 2.0 companies in his article, “What is Web 2.0”, September 30, 2005.

“They should be in the business of providing services not packaged software, while enabling cost effective scalability.” A key component here is the frequency in which Web 2.0 companies leverage MySQL Replication in a “scale-out” configuration. Scale-out enables the use of low-cost commodity servers to increase database performance and scalability, incrementally, at a fraction of the price of traditional “fork-lift” or “scale-up” methods. This capability is critical for companies who experience explosive growth and adoption in very short time frames.

“They should also exercise control over unique, difficult to replicate data sources which get richer the more individuals use and contribute to them.” A site might include a database of customer reviews and recommendations on products. You could imagine the difficulty of attempting to recreate all the unique, varied, and unbiased opinions you may find on a particular product. A site like Amazon’s “Customer’s Reviews” is an everyday example. They “control” the data of customer reviews, which would be difficult to replicate that without the same customer traffic and level of participation Amazon’s customers engage in. Another similar use can be found in eBay’s “Seller Ratings”. For many companies, this competency revolves around controlling data that for competitors is prohibitive to replicate due to the licensing costs from private data providers or an inability to engage users to “create” the data.

“Trusting users as co-developers.” This concept revolves around the idea that the users are actively assisting in various capacities in the development process of the application. To some degree, this is not a new concept. The open source community has relied on this model of active contribution since its inception. More specifically, the users and development community are active participants in the development, testing, requesting of enhancements and reporting of bugs. Even companies that offer applications which are not “open source” have employed this methodology. This can manifest itself by the introduction of new functionality in an accelerated manner which mimics the open source community’s “release early, release often” development model. It can also be accomplished by monitoring the usage patterns of users in order to gather intelligence on what functionality is being used and creating value, and which functionality is not.
By adopting the development state of being “in perpetual beta”, it allows a company to be more responsive in the adoption of new technologies and usage patterns. They also become more adaptable to changing business conditions. An example of an application still in “beta” yet with a large user base actively using and contributing either actively or passively, is Google’s Gmail application.

“Harnessing collective intelligence.” “Collective Intelligence” refers to the level participation a website reaches when the users themselves are actively deciding what is important and provides value to them. Websites which offer product reviews allow the users amongst themselves to rate products which presenta good value and those that do not. Other examples include Wikipedia where the users are charged with creating and policing data on the system. But also any site which leverages “tags” created by the users themselves to help aggregate and locate relevant data. The idea of collective intelligence can be applied to just about any system where the users of the system have been empowered to decide what is important or accurate and what is not.

“Leveraging the long tail through customer self service.” The “long tail” was first coined by Chris Anderson in a 2004 Wired Magazine article to describe certain business and economic models such as Amazon.com or Netflix. The point being made was that customer self-service can be leveraged with effective data management in order to offer goods and services which appeal to users outside the mainstream. The belief is that the aggregate of all these non-mainstream users is much larger then the mainstream users. For example, online booksellers and DVD rental sites draw a significant portion of their revenue from titles that have long disappeared from the general public’s radar. Another example can be seen in the gaining popularity of music trading sites like LaLa.com, whose business revolves around bringing “like-minded” individuals to trade music amongst themselves, regardless if their tastes fall well outside the mainstream.
It could be argued that this isn’t necessarily a new concept, as many traditional booksellers, video rental and music stores can attest to the fact that a significant portion of their business stems from music albums which have long disappeared from the charts, movies which have not screened in a theatre for years or books by authors who have long since fallen out of favor with the general public. Web 2.0 companies have realized that their applications must be designed to serve not only popular tastes but also the interests of those on the fringes.

“Software above the level of a single device.” The portability of data and the access to it is something Web 2.0 applications must attempt to adhere to. Users are coming to expect that their data can be accessed and synchronized across many devices, such as MP3 players, PDAs, cell phones, kiosks and more traditional computing mediums like workstations and laptops. This data must be especially indifferent to the hardware or operating system platforms on which is to be accessed.

“Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models.” On this point, the interfaces which users use to access data must be “lightweight” and highly portable, but still capable delivering a rich end user experience. The use of programming techniques and methodologies like Ajax and Ruby on Rails can be thought of in this respect. Using commodity off-the-shelf hardware, open source software and leveraging development communities and users for testing, allow Web 2.0 companies to enter established markets or create new markets at lower costs. It also allows their applications to be in “perpetual beta”, constantly adapting to the changes conditions of the marketplace and needs of end users.