Web 3.0 Predictions by a 1.0 Developer in a 2.0 World
Developers have migrated to the Web en masse. The browser is now the development platform, and the most interesting product and UI innovations are happening on the Web, often under the marketing name “Web 2.0“. Desktop office programs have browser versions, like Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets. Lots of folks are screaming that the desktop is dead.
Being a reformed desktop app developer myself, I beg to differ. My prediction is that the “Web 3.0″ wars will actually be waged on the desktop, with internet-enabled desktop applications harnessing the best of the Web’s dynamic data updates and the best of the desktop’s significant horsepower, while bypassing each platform’s inherent problems.
In spite of the Web’s clear advantages, the desktop still rules in certain domains. The most basic functions in Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Movie Maker take a tremendous amount of work to be replicated in a browser, and while some folks ooh and aah over the programming kung-fu of a Web-based, drag-and-drop, rich-text editor, it’s still a stupid text editor. My cat can write a better one for the desktop in 10 minutes and 100 lines of Delphi code.
It’s easy to notice the huge number of great Web apps coming out and miss the equally impressive desktop apps that have come out in recent years. There have been at least 13 desktop search programs; iTunes; dozens of P2P file-sharing programs; stardock, tons of desktop widgets (stock tickers, etc); scores of media players; and possibly the most-talked about non-Website program in recent years: Google Earth. A lot of these programs could run in your browser, but their developers made them desktop apps, usually for power and/or the ease of rich application development built into every modern OS, which browsers haven’t begun to catch up with.
The natural evolution, then, is not in turning your browser into a mini OS with a graphical shell–we’re already hitting serious roadblocks there. I’d bet real money the next step in the cycle is to turn stodgy desktop apps into connected powerhouses leveraging Web services and other APIs for up-to-the-minute data (and user data storage, why not?), and harnessing desktop OSes’ superior UI libraries and horsepower to display that data in creative, responsive, fast and exciting new ways the browser can’t replicate with acceptable browser (or programmer) performance.
How about a desktop Photoshop-style program with desktop-powered editing functions but seamless Web storage, integrated with Flickr tagging and A9 image search; or really, really fast and powerful news aggregation, search and processing? The sky is the limit.
Who’s with me?
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November 2nd, 2006 at 1:20 pm
I absolutely agree. The view of the Internet in general by user community versus the developer is vastly different. Most couldn’t accurately describe a deskop app vs. a browser app because to the uninitiated, everything is “on the desktop.”
Even the most primitive website in Web 1.0 was application software. It had a UI, security model (none), and a programatic flow via hyperlinks. The media and the venture community promoted the concept that the web was totally new and good with the same abandon that the early PC manufacturers used when distinguish PCs from bad ol’ mainframes. The historical way of doing things always has some latent value that escapes those trying to profit from a new concept.
Business people today still use different words to describe “writing software” when discussing an ERP System vs. “building a website” when the subject is a Real Estate Blog. Is there really that much difference? For either to truly succeed, they require specification, development, testing, and deployment. Who benefits from this distinction?
Having said this, the bigger challenge of the hybrid applications that you described, is the public’s preference for the immediate gratification and real-time availability of the browser app. IMHO, they’ll only tolerate an install to disk to the extent that it 1) poses imperceptible security / functionality threats and 2) offers functionality that isn’t already on the web, and 3) is free or low cost.
Why not have a browser app “morph” into a hybrid app by offering the user a choice to add additional desktop functionality, a little bit at a time. Using your Photoshop example, very basic image resizing and sharpening might be first offered in the browser. The user could be given an option to do a fast download of a 32bit “function container” along with a few other desktop app functions that would be too CPU intensive to be done over the Web. Over time, more functions could be added, until a rich desktop app had been installed. Over time, the local install process might be seen by the user as being as trivial as downloading an .MPEG file.
FYI, Real Estate agents are going to be especially resistant to desktop applications if there is an acceptable web analog exists, because 1) some don’t own a pc and can’t install, 2) they don’t want the additional technical challenges that .dll conflicts and failed installs bring, 3) the browser is free and they have come to expect that most of the Internet functionality is free.
BTW, not meaning to be negative, but have you guys tried recently tried posting a comment on this site? The window for editing jerks around. I did my editing in WordPad and then pasted. FYI, I’m use IE 7.0 and that may be the issue.
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Mark,
Thanks for your comments. What I had in mind was the reverse of your Photoshop solution, actually–ditch the browser altogether and build internet and Web capability into desktop apps. The browser isn’t the responsive, reliable, powerful platform you need to take app development to the next level: for example, a browser has hard limits on the things it can do, and it’s also designed to accommodate some medium common denominator. Web sites only perform incrementally better on my beefy, superfast, RAMmed out laptop than they do on my 3-year-old desktop. Compare that to apps that run several degrees of magnitude better and faster on the newer box (when they run at all on the older machine). You can always make a desktop app better by buying more RAM and a faster CPU; you only get relatively minor improvements from those upgrades in Web apps.
Your point about entrenched industries is well taken, and I think it also applies to the rest of the world. Unless and until desktop app delivery, installation, maintenance and updates are as seamless as what you get from server-side apps, I suspect the Web will still have the upper hand in terms of widespread adoption: everybody has a browser, and only a tiny percentage of people have your particular program.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Roger
November 3rd, 2006 at 9:09 am
Roger,
Today the browser is an app / app shell. Think of the browser as the ultimate trojan horse for your idea. I don’t believe wholesale “ditching” is going to happen at this point. What I forsee is that the future browser is the UI for the local operating system…start Windows and you’re in a vastly improved IE, and you never leave it.
Your local content and applications look and feel like websites and you seamlessly hyperlink to an from local and remote integrated functionality with complete transparency.
The tabbing function in IE 7 is a construct for this idea. Just ask multiple websites are “open” at the same time, IE looks more and more like the task bar. What if one tab was Trulia.com and another tab was Photoshop?
Yes, I know the technical challenges. In the longer term, however it is the simplicity of the UI that wins the heart of the User. They don’t really care where stuff is as long as they can do what they want.
Best,
Mark Cofano
November 4th, 2006 at 10:16 am
I totally agree!! I wish there was a downloadable version of Trulia I could install on my computer, very much like Google Earth. It would be soooo much faster if the data was just served by trulia.com and the UI was a rich desktop experience!
My only gripe about Trulia is it’s sometimes too slow. I want it to be as fast as a desktop application, and the only way to do that is to make it a desktop application!!
November 4th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
TruliaFan:
Thanks for your comment. We’re working hard to optimize responsiveness on Trulia and we appreciate your feedback. I find that Trulia and other sites are somewhat faster on Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, so if you haven’t tried either of those, you may want to give them a shot.
About a “desktop Trulia” type of application, we’re also thinking of interesting products that may be just the ticket. Stay tuned!
November 7th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Interesting article. most people don’t yet have a handle on web 2.0.
I marvel at how much of the software I use everyday resides on the internet. In some cases i pay a subscription fee and in other cases it is free. On those rare occasions when I can not get internet access I almost can’t work, but at this point I could get by with out desktop apps.