The Underscore Archives

														On 04/08/06, Chris Hawes <admin at chrishawes.net> wrote:

> Apologies...

S'ok. One (two?) of my pet peeves is people who write Web 2.0 off
completely as a fad, without realising that it's such a nebulous
concept that you can't make sweeping generalisations about the genre,
*plus* people who unthinkingly suck up everything that appears on
TechCrunch...


> I was not commenting on the Web 2.0ness(?) of it because I have
> anything specific against it.
> I was anticipating a backlash myself, so I thought it would be a good
> idea to add in a little warning, that way people don't assume I
> mentioned it because it hits all the right buzzwords.

I wonder whether creators of genuinely useful online apps will have to
start a new lo-fi, gradient-less aesthetic in order to not appear to
be all style and no substance.


> I agree that rich client applications do have their place, and there
> are some very good ones around, such as the two you mentioned.

I could have mentioned many more, if I'd taken time to think about it.
GMail, MeasureMap, 43[Places|Things|People], DevShop (private beta
starts today - hurrah!), even Amigo (Carson Systems' new "have
hay/want hay" app for matching advertisers to email newsletters).

Sturgeon's law applies as much (moreso?) in Web 2.0 land as anywhere,
though. Most of the really innovative stuff already happened; so may
people think that making *yet another* online calendar app With
Tagging (TM) will earn them oodles of VC or a big corporate buyout.
"Building to flip" is the term.


> (And I was being cheeky.)

Fairy nuff.

Tim