I am not the first to say it, but I will say it louder. The Internet is completely overloaded!
There is not one single original idea that doesn't find replicators (multiple replicators may I add), leading to an increased number of repeated offers with no significant improvements from one to another. For some time we had two champions to choose from: either MSN or Yahoo! for web portals, Yahoo! or Google for search engines, Expedia or Travelocity for travel. But today, it is a sea of options that seems to have no end, and apparently, this is just the beginning.
Explaining the causes of this phenomena would be mere speculation, but they lie somewhere in the neighborhood of developers wanting to hop on the Internet wagon while it continues to generate revenues. The consequences are two-fold: On the one side we are getting incredible web applications developed, and companies are having to really spend time in both programming and design to spit out high quality products that will attract a steady audience; while on the other side the overpopulation of the Internet with so many product makes it extremely confusing for users.
Recently I was doing some research about Web OS (read my previous post for more), and came across so many of them, it was close to impossible deciding which one to use. Something very similar happened to me when my previous employer asked me to choose and deploy a web based project management application. The number of alternatives was so high, and the differences so minimal, that making a decision was almost like shooting a dart in the dark. Consumers end up choosing the cheapest alternative (most times free), and so did I; but this leads to a biggest issue: how is any of these companies expecting to generate revenues?
It's no secret that online advertising revenues are on the rise, but it is only a handful of publishers who are getting a big chunk of it, while the smaller guys are simply struggling with the crumbs they pick from solutions like Google AdSense.
The problem also is that while it is really difficult for users to remain loyal to a supplier of a specific resource (be it social network, photo album, web application, etc.) it is also extremely hard for advertisers to risk their investment into unproven business models whose users might migrate to a different platform at any given time. Think of it as a flock of birds that has landed on a wire. They will stay quiet for a while but eventually will flee the wire to a more comfortable place.
Perhaps Open Source is the beginning of a solution. If instead of publishing a million applications per day, a group could be constituted where developers who contribute are also stockholders and benefit from the revenues in some form; the applications developed then would be more original and less repetitive, giving users less with more.
For now I will keep adding links to my favourites, which I will probably never visit ever again in my life; and hoping for a better syndication system in charge of developing the applications for tomorrow.
PS: If you are an advertiser, never trust the amount of subscribers you'd get from a Web App Site. Instead ask for active system users, frequency, and time spent.
1 comment:
I enjoyed this and your other post about Web OS. It summarized very well the issues involved -- and my frutstrations over the years with the Internet.
I'm considering joost. I use multiple computers and, over the years, have gone through many machines. Some of them died before I retrieved things I'd like to have. I use multiple browsers, IE7, Firefox and Opera. I've got bookmarks all over the place. Many of the best collections died with my old machines.
Something like joost makes total sense! Thanks for your perspective.
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