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dynamic digital 

business application

  requires that content and services will be continuously updated in 

response to marketplace forces. As competitors introduce new services and offers, and as 

marketing research reveals problems or opportunities with the site from a customer per-

spective, ongoing  

maintenance activities

  will be required for the digital business to remain 

competitive. Consider the services of Google ( Case study   3.1   ) which are continually updated 

to improve the user experience, performance and monetisation of the service. For example, 

Google has stated that it makes over 300 changes a year to its search algorithm to combat 

search  spam  and  deliver  more  relevant  results.         

 We saw in  Chapter   10    how agile development methodologies such as scrum promote con-

tinuous development in what is sometimes referred to as a ‘permanent beta’. So today there 

is generally less distinction between development and live phases, and many pureplay digital 

businesses seek a model of ‘ continuous release project ’ to enable more regular, incremental 

releases to web functionality. This approach is shown in  Figure   12.1   .  

     Introduction