I like Adam's style. 15px margins is the new black!
adamposey
· 1 year ago
I hate to draw an analogy of web applications being 'toys' but I think this fits. We're gonna see the same kind of 'innovation' we see in the action figure dept. at wal-mart. Endless cookie-cutter molds of pre-defined experiences and ideas.
The end result: less creativity, more copying, more 'add one feature to an existing product and release it'. There are very few remarkable innovations happening in action figures right now, and it turns out that people are having a lot more fun with 'build it yourself' experiences like Lego which is still going strong.
So, if I'm gonna predict the web in a few years, I'm thinking of it like lego blocks. Every page, every song, every graphic, every person, will be a block. And we can pull those blocks together to build our own experience. I doubt that the killer web2.0 application is actually going to be a website, I suspect it will be a browser application that's smart enough to put these experiences together and simply change the way we interact with the internet and the data on it.
There will be numerous pre-defined molds out there helping us to pull the experience together if we're not enthusiasts, but ultimately, I think the LEGO-web is coming. We're gonna need smarter tools, and smarter services, to help us pick which bricks we want to use in our experience.
The early adopters and the technologically adept will prefer to get a more advanced experience that is highly customizable, and the mass audience is going to prefer to use pre-defined tools and experiences.
That's my take on the situation, at least.
Fraser
· 1 year ago
Here's what I can't reconcile in my mind: if the only way to attract early-adopters is via simplistic, single-feature products AND the noise from single-feature, me-too, iterative innovations is deafening...
How does a company transition away from the single-feature and move towards something 'big', rising above the noise?
As for your analogy with toys, I think it holds up but do you think the LEGO web will be about the consumer reassembling the blocks to create something? Or will it be about companies constructing something with the blocks to create new services? My guess is the later.
adamposey
· 1 year ago
I think, much like legos, you'll get some pre-defined sets for less enthusiastic people who just want to have a good experience. but ultimately, what we're seeing is single feature sites and tools because the enthusiasts have become accustomed to mashing up everything.
So, when we get a new mapping application, we just want it to do that and do it very well so we can use that functionality on another site, and so on and so forth. We're gonna be building our own experiences, or getting sets built for us.
The enthusiastic among us will flock to places that give us more freedom and control to construct exactly experience we want in a way that mirrors our idea of what the web should behave like. I suspect the mass-market will be about pre-assembled packs of applications delivered to you in a well packaged fashion.
Fraser
· 1 year ago
Do the single feature sites only provide that one thing, but do it very well because that's what we want? Or, rather (1) is a single feature the only way to get noticed by impatient early-adopters; and, (2) to compete against the other X single feature companies who do exactly the same thing you have to "do it very well"
My question is: is the world of lego that you describe something that we want? Or the answer to what we've become?
adamposey
· 1 year ago
I think it's part of the evolution of the web. With a greater amount of information, and a static amount of time, not considering that the things we do with the net are increasing (how many of us REALLY watch TV anymore?) we're having to find ways to make the things we want to do fit into the time constraints we have.
This is why RSS readers exist, why start pages exist, why we've flocked to devices like iPhones to keep us connected as much as possible. We're taking as much information as we can, and putting it in one place, and adapting the technology to properly filter that information. It's why we use sites like socialthing, friendfeed, etc. to take information from all over the place and bring it into one place.
The supply of information is increasing, so this has become our way to condense and filter it.
As for early adopters using 'single feature' sites, I think the real question isn't if mass-audience will use them, but how to deliver them. I suspect that, originally, we'll see sites go with a facebook style 'repository' model where the core service maintains a list of these applications. The thing is that all of these sites are going to be very long tail, they're not going to appeal to everyone and we need to create filters for them. People are going to need assistance making something out of the mess. :)
All Comments
The end result: less creativity, more copying, more 'add one feature to an existing product and release it'. There are very few remarkable innovations happening in action figures right now, and it turns out that people are having a lot more fun with 'build it yourself' experiences like Lego which is still going strong.
So, if I'm gonna predict the web in a few years, I'm thinking of it like lego blocks. Every page, every song, every graphic, every person, will be a block. And we can pull those blocks together to build our own experience. I doubt that the killer web2.0 application is actually going to be a website, I suspect it will be a browser application that's smart enough to put these experiences together and simply change the way we interact with the internet and the data on it.
There will be numerous pre-defined molds out there helping us to pull the experience together if we're not enthusiasts, but ultimately, I think the LEGO-web is coming. We're gonna need smarter tools, and smarter services, to help us pick which bricks we want to use in our experience.
The early adopters and the technologically adept will prefer to get a more advanced experience that is highly customizable, and the mass audience is going to prefer to use pre-defined tools and experiences.
That's my take on the situation, at least.
How does a company transition away from the single-feature and move towards something 'big', rising above the noise?
As for your analogy with toys, I think it holds up but do you think the LEGO web will be about the consumer reassembling the blocks to create something? Or will it be about companies constructing something with the blocks to create new services? My guess is the later.
So, when we get a new mapping application, we just want it to do that and do it very well so we can use that functionality on another site, and so on and so forth. We're gonna be building our own experiences, or getting sets built for us.
The enthusiastic among us will flock to places that give us more freedom and control to construct exactly experience we want in a way that mirrors our idea of what the web should behave like. I suspect the mass-market will be about pre-assembled packs of applications delivered to you in a well packaged fashion.
My question is: is the world of lego that you describe something that we want? Or the answer to what we've become?
This is why RSS readers exist, why start pages exist, why we've flocked to devices like iPhones to keep us connected as much as possible. We're taking as much information as we can, and putting it in one place, and adapting the technology to properly filter that information. It's why we use sites like socialthing, friendfeed, etc. to take information from all over the place and bring it into one place.
The supply of information is increasing, so this has become our way to condense and filter it.
As for early adopters using 'single feature' sites, I think the real question isn't if mass-audience will use them, but how to deliver them. I suspect that, originally, we'll see sites go with a facebook style 'repository' model where the core service maintains a list of these applications. The thing is that all of these sites are going to be very long tail, they're not going to appeal to everyone and we need to create filters for them. People are going to need assistance making something out of the mess. :)