The web - because change happens

A feature of the web: it changes, all the time and fast. Things on the web are flexible. New stuff emerges as if from nowhere, stuff you were counting on using disappears to be replaced by the next great thing. There's no resting on laurels: today's innovative approach is next month's tired old design.

So what can you do? I reckon three things:

1. Keep your eyes and ears open
   For the web more than for traditional media, you really need to get a sense of how the landscape is changing. These days there are plenty of ways to do this, from having your professional journal of choice in your RSS feeds to reading blogs from other people in your profession. If you keep your eyes and ears open you'll not only being able to spot the next trend: over time you'll also build a sense of which new things are just fads and which are here to stay - at least for a while.
   
   
2. Focus on the job, not the tool.
   Good service. A sense of community. Being comfortable using what you offer. If you ask users what they want from a site, those are the sorts of things they come up with. Very rarely will they say "I want a site to have a Facebook, a wiki and three blogs".
   Social media - and indeed, any other feature of your website - are only tools you use to give the users what they want. We tend to focus too much on our toolboxes; to worry that this hammer is going to be obsolete soon, or that we can't proceed further until we have a full set of tools made of the latest alloy. Ultimately, though, our users don't care if we used a hammer or a saw, so long as that roof they wanted has been built.
   
   
3. Use the medium's flexibility
   The great thing about the web is, it's pretty easy to change the stuff you put on it. There's a lot more scope for "running it up the flagpole and seeing who salutes", as the truly obnoxious management phrase goes.
   In other words, you don't need to spend months crafting the perfect feature. Put something out there, review it often, and change it if it's not doing what you (or more importantly your users) want. The web lets you change things fast and often - use that power.
   As a corollary to this, you may need to eliminate technology, or more likely procedures, that get in the way of making swift changes to what you offer on the web.