The structural evolution of the Web 2.0 service network

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to analyze empirically the structure of the Web2.0 service network and the mechanism behind its evolution over time. Design/Methodology/Approach – Based on the list of Web2.0 services and their Mashups that is announced on www.programmableweb.com, a network of Web2.0 services was constructed. Within this network, a node represents a Web2.0 service with an open API, and a link between two nodes represents the existence of a Mashup service that uses the two nodes. Findings – Our findings suggest that the evolution of the Web2.0 service network follows the preferential attachment rule, although the exponent of the preferential attachment is lower than for other networks following a preferential attachment rule. Additionally, our results indicate that the Web2.0 service network evolves to a scalefree network, but the exponent of the power law distribution is lower than for other networks as well. Originality/ value – The research applied social network analysis to the Web2.0 service network. It showed that its network structure and the evolution mechanism are different from those found in similar areas, e.g. the WWW. The findings imply that there are factors which lower the exponent of the preferential attachment equation and the power law distribution of the degree centralities. Research limitation/implications – However, we did not investigate the factors responsible for the low values of the exponent of the preferential attachment equation and the exponent of the power law distribution. However, we discussed that it could be correlated with the fact that the interconnection between nodes depends on the property of the nodes.