The Generative Architecture of a Digital Ecosystem: A Network Perspective

Contemporary digital ecosystems are characterized by their generativity, where third-party developers primarily drive innovations. However, the underlying generative architecture of a digital ecosystem is not well known. In this study, we draw on a network biology approach to explore the architectural pattern of how individual software modules in a digital ecosystem interact with one another to produce a seemingly ever-changing ecosystem. We conduct an empirical study using data from WordPress.org, the world’s largest blog service platform using text mining and network analysis to extract the API (Application Programming Interface) components used in plug-ins developed by both WordPress and third-party developers. We examine the underlying generative structure of the WordPress ecosystem through a coexpression network of APIs. Even though there is no central designer who coordinates the design of all plug-ins and the overall growth of the entire WordPress ecosystem, our results show that the way APIs are used to form complex and dynamic ecosystem of WordPress follows a discernable pattern that is distinct from known distributions. The analysis further reveals that while the APIs created by the focal firm play a central role in shaping the architecture of the generativity of the ecosystem, some of the external APIs developed by other players also have an important role in shaping the ecosystem, showing the distributed nature of the architecture of the generativity.