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Filed under Foresight on June 1, 2006 by Richard Ziade

The Spirit Of Web 2.0

For the past couple of months, we’ve been grappling with how best to market what Arc90 actually does. Are we a design firm? Are we a “web shop” (*shudder*)? Are we all about strategic consulting? It’s hard to distill all the different angles of what we do into a few words (or some sort of “process diagram”).

Luckily, we have a blog that allows us to ramble on and (and on) about all the different aspects of Arc90. After some debate, we begrudgingly agreed to slap the “Web 2.0” label on ourselves. Now, there isn’t an agreed-upon Web 2.0 definition out there. And we’re not only about a laundry list of technologies like tagging and RSS. As a “Web 2.0” consulting firm, I think we’re more about the spirit of Web 2.0 than anything else.

Which of course leads to the next question: what in Sam Hill is the spirit of Web 2.0? Well, for us it’s about:

  • A strong emphasis on good, intuitive, simple, user-centered design.
  • A willingness to question and defy common ways of solving problems.
  • An overriding passion about technology – from design to architecture to development.
  • Having the guts to not only meet client needs, but help guide them to bigger and better things (this is a side-effect of the whole “passion” thing).
  • Evangelizing the notion of “architectural readiness” – helping companies ready themselves for changes to come, and not just react to them.

What excites us about Web 2.0 is that it is a truly organic creation. It’s not borne out of some standards body or anointed by some big corporate behemoth but just sort of sprung out of the intelligence, curiosity and enthusiasm of a widely connected community. RSS. Ajax. Simple APIs. They’re not just technologies but powerful statements against bloat, over-use of technology and beuracracy.

It’s an exciting time to be in technology and we’re glad to be in the middle of it.

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Comments

Yes, technology is great. "As a “Web 2.0” consulting firm, I think we’re more about the spirit of Web 2.0 than anything else." May be, may be :)

Posted on October 13, 2006 1:04 PM by flykoo

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