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Will the web end-up as a services-only platform?

01.Sep.2008

It’s getting more and more important for a website to have it’s on API and work more like a service. We’ve seen cases that it was the API itself the most important feature. Twitter wouldn’t get this much popularity if it wasn’t for the easy integration with all kinds of platforms, being most of their clients user-made. And the most popular platform, in most cases, is the desktop itself. Out of the browser to a desktop application. Everyone twitts with their favourite AIR client, Flickr power users got their upload application, and few people go for the trouble of searching through their del.icio.us page (even though it looks better now) when the service is all integrated in Firefox thanks to the official plug-in.

Application mockup

However the web pages have their own advantages. You can’t really offer as much features on a desktop client as you can on a web page. At least maintaining a usable GUI. And since you have an easier control on all the canvas, their usually look prettier too. Mix that with the little effort cost from a user to start using a website (no download or setup) it’s really best marketing option in short term.

But web pages can’t really compete in terms of response speed in every interaction. Most of the times, you just can’t get enough productivity out of them. So if you really use frequently a specific service, a desktop client can give you a much better experience. Besides that, you can interact with all of your desktop applications and features we all take for granted like file drag-and-drop and background working.

Where are we headed then? Will we just surf the web for the next trend and download the desktop application right after. Or desktop clients are only good for very specific services and what will see is all our current applications being available on web pages?

Right now I only have clients for twitter and gmail and I’m writing this post on a web page so, the web sites are still winning. It’s the same for you, or you already have your system tray full of familiar icons?

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2 Comments

"You can’t really offer as much features on a desktop client as you can on a web page. At least maintaining a usable GUI. And since you have an easier control on all the canvas, their usually look prettier too" Sorry, I couldn't disagree more... :) Are you saying there's more control on a "Web canvas" than on a local application one? In my view, there's no way web applications can provide more features. Web browsers themselves are desktop applications... so any desktop application can provide browser-like features and more. I think the advantages of web browsers are others than the number of different features they can provide.

filipe correia / 19.Sep.2008 at 08:34pm

I agree that the web canvas is technically limited to at least all functionalities of a desktop application, of course.

But what I was talking about was more like a general felling. Inside the web canvas more permissions are given than in a regular application. Users are more open to an experience of exploration and discovery than on a application installed on their computer.

However, you are right, I shouldn't have used the word control, since it's not a technical matter.