To put it in a single sentence, Web 2.0 businesses are those that can capitalize on online network effects. This means you need a lot of things, and you need to do a great job of connecting those things in meaningful, value-added ways.

Because of the deep connection between networks and successful web 2.0 companies, it helps to define or describe attributes of successful networks a bit more. Here's a start:

• Networks don't have a center.
• They are easy to access. Often, they can be accessed from any side, or from any point.
• They grow in all directions.

If you're a web 2.0 company, your site, or your online presence, needs to be constructed as a network. Is your site accessible from any point? Test yourself: how much traffic comes from visitors who enter on a page that is deep in your site? For many web 2.0 companies, especially those of a user-generated or "information wants to be free" mentality, this number is large, and growing. For such companies, the concept of a home page is outdated; there is no central entrance if everyone is coming in from all different directions. These companies are in true network mode. For them, site architecture is not the same as it is for a web 1.0 company that is expects the vast majority of users to come in from the home page and be perfectly able to find what they are looking for using a simple navigation and taxonomy.

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