Comments on: Are All Web App Platforms Doomed by Fatigue?

By: josh

josh — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:06:30 +0000

both facebook and iphone have had a really interesting phenomenon of hypergrowth in their platforms that leveled and became, well, just a normal platform that grows at a more reasoned pace.

I think the reason for this is simple – when Facebook Platform launched, there were already 50,000,000 users of Facebook who now had apps for the first time. Every one of them rushed in to experiment. Same thing happened with all that pent up demands for apps with iPhone.

once that initial rush of users who actively used the product but didn’t have apps wears off, then it becomes a steady state. users use the products. Users find new apps from marketing, word-of-mouth, social spread, etc. users use apps. It’s not necessarily hyper-growth, but I don’t think anyone should doubt these platforms are here to stay.

By: michael sean

michael sean — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:31:51 +0000

I’m okay with the state of the iPhone platform. I hear about the good apps through Touch Arcade and MacRumors. Facebook is another story. I’ve only ever used one or two Facebook apps. All that invite spam just left a bad taste in my mouth.ssttoo hit the nail on the head. These app ecosystems are behaving just like the Internet itself. We’ll discover new apps the same way we discover new websites. Through the news, blogs, and word of mouth. The noise is nothing to be afraid of. The downside is that the noise is here to stay.

By: Marco

Marco — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:19:21 +0000

I think we’re giving “apple’s intentions with the platform” too much credit. The iFart app is #1 not because everyone’s juvenile, but it’s because everyone likes to be juvenile occasionally, and a silly app for your phone is a perfect platform. These days people view their phone not only as key communication and productivity aid, but as an occasional distraction from the flood of other things trying to get their attention. It’s your little toolbox of toys to play with for a few minutes on your lunch break. Maybe you wanna use it to make fart noises and laugh a bit. That doesn’t mean the world is doomed.

I agree that discovering new apps is the problem. But instead of defining them as “worthwhile apps” let’s define them as “the apps you want”. For whatever reason that may be. I think the app store has done a pretty commendable job with pushing up popular apps so they appear on the front page. If your app can’t make it there then you need a new strategy for getting downloads. That’s how the market works right?

By: The thing

The thing — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:56:48 +0000

It’s Sturgeon’s Law; “90% of everything is crap.” The thing is, before the Internet publishers, record labels etc. exerted _some_ quality control…

By: Sachin Rekhi

Sachin Rekhi — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:52:13 +0000

What a timely post since I just wrote this morning about the top underhyped platforms: http://www.sachinrekhi.com/blog/2009/01/07/top-underhyped-open-platforms Maybe these are doomed to go the way of the overhyped platforms in 2009 as well! I suppose time will tell.

By: AnonymousPedant

AnonymousPedant — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:51:20 +0000

iPhone != web

By: Darcy

Darcy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:51:19 +0000

Good old fashioned Marketing is the only way to get your app/service/product to succeed. Always has been, and always will be. These are nothing more than the same old problems in new places. They simply hit harder and faster due to the nature of the platforms. For App store success, look at Things. While I don't have any conclusive evidence to back it up, I'd bet their success has more to do with the exposure they've received outside of the app store than what they've received within it. Also, look at Apple themselves. They don't sell well simply because they're on display in Best Buy, or even in their own Apple stores. They sell well because they make great products and market them extraordinarily well. Having a great product is a distant second to having great marketing.

By: Snarky McSnark

Snarky McSnark — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:07:20 +0000

fatigue? sounds like they need REST.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:18:52 +0000

It’s not as if it’s a new idea to present options in terms of how popular they are. Think about the way mozilla.com handles all the extensions for Firefox – it’s never (or rarely) a problem finding the most popular/useful extensions just by hitting that home page.

In fact just about anything I can think of *besides* Facebook and iPhone do just fine about filtering the noise from the useful options. Amazon, iTunes, eBay… any time there are more than a dozen things to choose from you need a way to feature the most attractive items.

So I don’t see this as an ongoing or unavoidable problem at all, just because a couple of offenders did it wrong.

By: BerislavLopac

BerislavLopac — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:52:34 +0000

As always, I see this fatigue not as a problem but as an opportunity. To extend ssttoo’s parallel above, what we need is a Google for application platforms.