2. Keep it simple

While many consumer-focused Web 2.0 applications may seem simple, that simplicity is usually the result of hard work by developers working hand-in-hand with users.

Stan Schroeder, a blogger at Mashable, a social network that follows Web 2.0 companies, noted in a post that developers have begun to understand that it's better to build a very simple service, and then add APIs to provide complex services.

"Features, I've recently come to realize, can be obstacles. Problems. The more powerful an application is, the more specialized it is, and thus with increased power its intended audience shrinks," Schroeder wrote.

Many times traditional enterprise IT shops will identify a need and develop multiple ways of meeting it when the user would be happy with one, Gribbons noted. But without constant interaction with users, developers often are unaware of the yearning for simple user interfaces.

3. Stick to the script

Web 2.0 companies are partial to dynamic scripting languages like Ruby, Python, Perl and PHP, finding them better choices for their projects than Sun Microsystems' Java or Microsoft's .Net.

Forrester's Hammond noted that once developers become proficient in one of the dynamic languages, they can build new applications quickly - 30 per cent to 40 per cent faster than with Java or .Net.

More than half of all North American developers are using scripting languages to some degree, according to a December survey by Evans Data, a research firm.

While more than half of those developers now use scripts less than 20 per cent of the time, both the total number of developers using scripting languages and the amount of time spent will likely increase over the next year, according to the Evans survey.