Product Development 2.0 [Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog]

While the window on using the "2.0" suffix is probably closing, I thought it would be worthwhile to explore an especially significant trend in 2006 that will likely see much more widespread uptake in 2007.  Specifically, I'm talking about building highly competitive online products by turning over non-essential control to users directly via the Web.  For now, I'm calling this online business trend "Product Development 2.0", a concept that embodies the use of Web 2.0 concepts such as harnessing collective intelligence, users as co-creators, and turning applications into platforms, three of the most powerful techniques in the Web 2.0 arsenal.

What is Product Development 2.0 exactly?  It's an informal term I'm applying to something that online startups and traditional businesses both are increasingly doing: leveraging of mass user contributions, providing open architectures for others to build on as they like, and even handing control over key product decisions directly to users.  The reasoning behind doing this is simple:  Satisfied customers have always been essential to having the most successful business, both online and offline.  But how best can you ensure that they get exactly what they want from you, as customized and quickly as possible?  This is where the scale, new tools, and business models of Web 2.0 have stepped in, giving us the potential to provide our customers with better, rich products, much more quickly, and with more of what they want.  Taken as a whole, it's increasingly clear that there are new business models afoot that are just now being well understood.

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