If you are wondering what is the McDonald’s connection with web applications, let me clarify that this is not about the offerings. I intend to discuss the kinds of experiences a brand, either emerging or long established, promise to offer to the customer or the user. McDonald’s is more a case in point that has created a true blue legacy of brand franchising across the globe. There are more than 30,000 McDonald’s Restaurants in over 119 countries. McDonald’s global sales were over $41bn, making it by far the largest food company in the world. In 1955, Ray Kroc realized that the key to success was rapid expansion. The best way to achieve this was through offering franchises. Today, over 70 percent of McDonald’s restaurants are run on this basis. [The Times 100-Business Case Studies]. In it’s mind boggling pace of expansion from Bolivia to Bahrain, one thing has stayed true and consistent to the brand - the customer experience! (apart from the fact that these countries never fought a war against each other). In today’s rapidly converging e-businesses a new form of franchising is noticeable. As the web evolves into social patterns of integration and aggregations, the brands are no longer stand alone identities. In numerous discussions about web 2.0, the future of the web comes across as the freedom in data exchange, cross hosting applications and mash ups. "The point isn’t the features, it’s the underlying philosophy of relinquishing control." — Peter Merholz.

So the philosophy of Web 2.0 is to let go of control, share ideas and code, build on what others have built, free your data. It’s actually a difficult philosophy to live by, when you consider how capitalistic Western society is. Read article: Web as Platform Mash Ups

Albeit some would argue that this is not a ‘franchising’ true to the business school definitions. But if one takes a closer look, may be the dynamics will be more revealing. The landscape of data syndication is throwing up new potentials everyday, creating new market forces, novel marketing techniques and business models.Undoubtedly they suggest that a new form of Information Franchising by opening up the boundaries of identity is increasingly becoming the rule of the game. And in this new franchising, individual brands and their promises play a very crucial role. The question is what drives this brand collaboration and how the individual market or mind share of these brands contribute to the shaping of a collaborated message. Today, Facebook, already valued at $15 billion, has become a defacto platform for publishing applications, widgets and blidgets for the social networking community. Every other web service is vying to be published as a ‘Facebook App’. Evidently 100,000 new users each day is a lot of mind share. But is this lightning fast growth of ‘information franchising’ costing the quality of experience that facebook promised it’s users before it made history? I distinctly remember people gravitating towards Facebook primarily because of the appeal of it’s spartan minimalism and ‘how simply and effortlessly you could do things around here’. McDonald’s’ painstaking effort of offering french fries that tastes the same no matter where you are eating it, may not hold out in todays busy mashed up market clusters. Yet it makes sense for the major internet brands today to ponder upon why and how they came along from where they started. Who knows…users may not keep lovin’ it for long!