The phrase architecture of participation describes the nature of systems that are designed for user contribution, such as open source and Wikipedia. It was coined by Tim O'Reilly, who described it at length in a 2003 speech and later in several of his online writings.

The phrase has come to define one of the key elements of what's been called Web 2.0, which describes the collection of companies, technologies and projects that are designed around the culture and economics of openness.

Business Examples

There is a shift in business models that comes along with building a business that leverages this type of architecture. Typically, a third-party payor system arises where an external entity will pay for access to those individuals who are participating in the system. One of the earliest and most well-known examples of this type of system is Google search. Those people who participate by searching on Google don't pay anything, but the business works because there are third parties (advertisers in this case) who will pay Google to gain access to the attention of the people participating.

The GPL and other licences for free and open source software set a natural framework for participation. The LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP / Perl / Python) has emerged largely as a result of participation by hundreds of thousands of users and developers, rivaling and many times outcompeting closed source software stacks produced by powerful software corporations.

See also

Social Software

Web 2.0

Enterprise 2.0

Human network