When Web 2.0 Becomes Web Uh-Oh

The promise of cross-organizational computing and communications has long been a holy grail for network architects. From the dawn of the Arpanet to today's deployments of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and remotely hosted applications, wider reuse of standards-compliant software components has been a constant goal. The rise of social networks and Web 2.0 principles are the latest trends in reusing software on nonhierarchical architectures. When these architectures work - when user identities are protected, when process security is ensured, and when there is consensus on both technical and contextual attributes of a given piece of software - the cross-organizational model has great potential. However, when the needs of disparate communities are not aligned, the results can be embarrassing, at the very least.