Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, July 14, 2005:
Why There’s Still Money in Web 1.0
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.There's been a bunch of talk on the blogs lately about Web 2.0 and the new (not really new, but they are hot) technologies like AJAX and so on. All I want to say in this post is for everyone to not for get that MOST of the money is and will be in Web 1.0 applications for some time. Most companies I've talked with, read about or in anyway know about are still wrapping their minds around Web 1.0. They still don't have most of their internal applications webified, they still send paper checks to their employees, they still use physical timeclocks, they still have you make reservations by calling someone. So while all us geeks get caught up with nifty AJAX widgets let's just not forget that those things aren't going to be on any companies "required features" list for a long long time.
That doesn't mean this technologies and their exploration aren't important or that some folks won't make money with them (see 37signals). Just that most companies simply want help webifying their current infrastructure. They want reliability and support. You don't need these new riskier1 technologies to make money and be in business. If it's the right thing to do for your business then great, but there's no need to feel like you have to use them or you'll be behind. The fact is that if you even know about this stuff you're still way way ahead of most businesses out there. And hey just look at Ebay. One of the biggest companies in the world, a company that helped create what the web is today still has a site out of 1995.
1. In the sense that they're less tested as well as the fact that you have less experience using them.
Discussion
Right on, brother!
(As you know Ian) I'm currently developing a Project Management application. In the near future I am going to be making an announcement on my blog regarding how I will be tackling the need to produce a "richer" user experience. While still taking into account things like, client-side environment, and (relative) ease of debugging/development.
A slick front-end doesn't have to be tons of JavaScript and HTML!
Created by Michael Sica on 07.14.2005 11:07 pm
Great post! Even the 37signals guys have gotten most of their traction thru ultra simple interfaces that just happen to use newer technologies.
Created by ratso on 07.14.2005 11:07 pm
Ian,
It's been 3-4 days since you last posted, such delays between posts never happened previously . We love reading your posts
Hope everything is alright on your end.
Raza
Created by Raza on 07.14.2005 11:07 pm
Sorry for the shameless self-promotion, but I mentioned I was going to make an annoucement regarding the front-end of my app in the first comment of this post. Well, here it is:
Annoucement
Follow Up
Created by Michael Sica on 07.14.2005 11:07 pm
Sweet. I can't wait to check it out!
-----
Created by Ian on 07.14.2005 11:07 pm