I came across a nice post by Tom Grant of Forrester Research, talking about the impact Web 2.0 has had on how we talk about accessing information. As he pointed out, the old discussions on application architectures were repository-centric. In other words, all the talk was about how and where you store content.
Today, all the talk is about what you can do with your content:
"One of the striking things about the Web 2.0 world is not only the ease of integration, but also the relative unimportance of the repository in the discussion...Mashups keep on growing, both in options (what you can combine) and methods (how you build them, and the level of technical skill needed). You can upload documents to Box.net, and use Zoho to edit them in place."
This reflects the kinds of questions we're always asking at Box. How can we help people do more with their content? How can we make it easy for people to connect and work together around shared content? It's an exciting and fun challenge because new tools are giving people new choices every day. We've long supported the idea of a robust and open platform that brings people together around shared ideas and content, lets them choose how they bring those ideas to life through a myriad of tools and gives developers a place to connect with users and introduce them to even more tools to enhance their content.
What's next? It'll be fun for us all to stay tuned. But as Tom said, it's a whole different ball game:
"What many once considered to be a kludge--integration above the level of the repository--is now the main platform for innovation. Now, if that's not a sign that we live in a different world, I don't know what is."
Here's to an exciting and awesome 2009!
Post by Sean Lindo, Community Manager