Product Development 2.0

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Any blog that you visit on technology is talking about the extremely powerful Web 2.0 concepts such as harnessing the collective intelligence, focusing on end users/customers as co-creators, and turning the applications into platforms.

Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog that I track for write ups on this topic today had a posting titled "Product Development 2.0" and there were some interesting points that were discussed there.

For a young company which is launching itself into developing a product many of ideas / items listed in the note are probably ones which would not make a lot of sense.

I categorize the points that are listed into 3 broad areas and try to address why young companies might 'resist' or take longer the need to make the transition if they have to survive,

1. Stakeholder Interaction and Transparency
2. Product Development and Ownership
3. Definition of Competitive Advantage

Some of the points that I feel Dion has missed out in this transition into the Product 2.0 development approach are,

1. Risk Reward Structure - The 'firm' is taking most of the risk in terms of monetizing the product but with substantial support from its users etc. If users contribute at any stage - requirements definition, design, development, testing etc I am not sure if they would simply take the product and be happy ?
2. Segmentation and Targeted Products - If a firm wants to have multiple versions / tracks for different customer segments - how would we handle this in this model ?
3. Prioritisation and Sequencing Approach - I agree that collecting a database of intentions is a good idea and would go a long way in interacting with end customers but I think this should also be backed up with a very good process to process that database and ensure that reverse communication is done with the co-creators.
   

Tags: web 2.0, product development 2.0