Simon Willison’s Weblog

Toolkits for user innovation (via) Jon Udell’s last two paragraphs resonate strongly with me:

Von Hippel advances the notion of user innovation toolkits. The Apache Web server, with its modular architecture, is an example of such a toolkit. In the hands of skilled programmers, Apache can be, and often is, tailored to specific needs. When such customizations are shared, other users benefit. But so do Apache's developers, who, by observing what's done with the toolkit, can more intelligently evolve the core product.

Web-based software delivered as a service is, at its best, another kind of innovation toolkit. Users bring the data; developers wrangle the code; more useful innovation happens faster than it otherwise could.