The Web as Application Delivery Medium
ZDNet’s Dion Hinchcliffe has been discussing Wiki’s, blogs, and Web 2.0 – the read/write web – as the next major applications platform in his article Is the walled garden Web blowing apart? Giving this some thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that this has been an entirely logical extension to current applications development and the route web content creation has taken over the last several years.
Over time, the tools used to create applications have grown increasingly easier to use (though the applications themselves have often grown significantly more complex): witness Visual Basic and Rapid Application Development software that emerged to empower more people to generate their own applications faster. Paralleling this, the web has become even easier and faster to develop content for, with the advent of the community-created website (what better example than Wikipedia), and blogs (where posting messages and comments requires very little effort).
But this isn’t news: what’s interesting is when these two content creation channels converge: applications as content, and the web as an application. Ruby on Rails “doesn’t hurt” to develop sites with, while WordPress and Movable Type have made it easier than ever to setup a blog (to say nothing of LiveJournal and other hosted systems). The web has become an application that anyone – and everyone – can modify, and it’s only getting easier.
The potential in applications delivered via the web is huge: rapid development (especially as mashups become increasingly popular), high-quality software, and on-demand results. As users see the immense potential in the web as a content application, astute executives are beginning to see the profit potential in developing whole new breeds of software using the web as a delivery medium. For instance, the explosion in new Web 2.0 companies lately has been astounding: companies that base their product offering as a web application users can subscribe to (and everyone loves a recurring-revenue business model).
Existing companies – especially those not at the forefront of the Web 2.0 movement – are beginning to appreciate the potential in the web as a software delivery vehicle. With eBay’s new community, large companies that previously focused on a top-down model are embracing the democratization of content creation.
I can only wonder at what the next logical step will be.
