A few days ago Chris wrote a post about today’s fad of Web apps. Bill Webb followed the next day with this post. Bill’s post is populated with many good comments on the topic. I am one of the commentors. I thought it might be worth the CyberInk to give my opinion on the future of web apps and, hopefully, get feedback on what others feel. I am of the opinion that we will see more and more webapps developed and the dependent variable for popularity will be their ease of use. I can easily see a day when the average user will not even be aware of the difference between the two. There are more and more people focusing on the seamless integration of both. I foresee the two merging. Neither is going to replace the other. They are, I think, going to merge and compliment each other.

In the past there has been talk of a "paperless" office. Lifehacker has a good post about a placeless office and has had many post on the topic of collaboration tools. A quick glance at the list makes it clear that there are many, many options out there. It is clear that there is much collaboration going on in the cyberworld. I think of collaborative type apps when I think of web apps. There is more to it than that.

There are a lot of variants on what is a social web app, a web desktop app, or collaborative apps in general. I think the post mentioned above does a nice job of discussing the collaborative aspect of working together in a "virtual" office. This nexus project is the work of people only connected through CyberSpace. Collaborative software or groupware is definitely popping up on the web at an explosive rate. I think the real question is whether it will catch on or not.

Where do we start? How about what we use? This is a decent summary on the Web 2.0 Summit. Personally, I am rather surprised. There is no mention of Flickr or Second Life. Not to mention of one of my favorites; del.icio.us. I also seemed to notice that there was almost no mention of any "true" collaborative software.

Of course, 5 parents and 5 teenagers is not much of a cross cultural sample. What are the most popular sites these days? That depends on who you ask and many other variables. A link leap over to alexa tells us the top 500 sites by traffic lists a lot of Web 2.0 sites. Looking over this list we can see a bit of a trend. The way I look at it is that it seems most of the people are more interested in the sharing and social aspects of Web 2.0 and fewer in the collaborative aspects of it. This makes sense to me. The average Internet inhabitant is mostly interested in recreation. This article seems to agree with what I am saying. The web is becoming more and more so, a social place. If you read through the article I just mention, you will notice that many of the sites are also aggregators of sorts. I feel the reason is that you can not socialize and not aggregate. That is my first point. As we socialize more, we will naturally follow and collaborate more.

What does this mean for the webapps? More specifically, in terms of collaborative software. The many sharing sites such as flickr and youTube are not going anywhere. The social sites such as MySpace or Facebook might wane in popularity a bit but they are not going to disappear. But what about efforts such as GoogleDocs, WriteBoard or the new ThinkFree? (Here is another one I just happened on today, Office.com and, another web desktop, Yourminis.com.) It is my opinion that the use of collaborative tools on the web is far from its peak. The rate of growth is likely not to be as explosive as sites such as YouTube or MySpace but, I feel, there is a social acceptance factor and a learning curve that will still make it grow.

Let us consider those who already use such services. They are the ones who have web based businesses. They are the eager, early adaptors to this technology. In today’s world though, almost every business needs a web presence. As other businesses notice and adopt the technology, more and more workers will be mandated to use such services. In the old days a boss would send a memo, now they send an e-mail. The employees are expected to read the e-mail. In the near future, you will no longer be sent documents to edit but, I feel, you will be sent a link to a site to edit one. The rate that this usage grows will depend on how easily the user can use it. The more painless the switch is, the quicker it will grow. I think, based on the reputation of the coder, Parakey has great potential. You can read a little bit about it here. You can sign up for it here. One of the reasons I feel it has promise is because it is being hyped as easy to use. If it is automatic enough, it has the potential to create an explosion in the use of such apps.

Webapps also offer users more choices. When I started using Yahoo as my startpage it was because it allowed me to customize things very easily. I feel a large part of the sucess of Windows was for the same reason. Bill Ives just put up a good post about portals by mashing up. For the same reason I see promise in Parakey, I see promise in drag and drop portals and wikis. The easier they are to use, the more popular they will become. The more natural the user interface, the more rapid the acceptance.

That brings me to another reason why I feel the use of webapps will continue to increase. Consider the youth and education. Those still in school are being exposed to more and more of the web each day in the classroom. There are many Web 2.0 applications specifically for education. (The link is the first in a series of articles on the subject.) This early introduction will create more and more adept users. As they graduate and enter the work force, it will be more and more natural for things to be done that way. Just as e-mail is pretty much a requirement for any job these days, the use of Web 2.0 apps will become so in the future.

Increased connectivity is also another reason that this trend will continue to increase. We can connect at coffee shops, through our cell phones and, in some areas, free city wide wireless. This constant ability to connect will make web apps more and more desirable to the average user. Eventually constant connectivity will be the norm.

Now I do agree with Chris in the fact that desktop applications are not going anywhere. I do, like and agree with Bill, in seeing the portability advantage of such applications. It is the very reason I have a logmein.com account. I think they are both right though for I see a day when they will be seamlessly merged with web apps. I foresee, in the near future, when we will have remote access be as simple as checking our e-mail. Eventually the use of such applications will become so easy that your grandmother will be able to use it. When that point is reached, the average user will make the transition and not even know it.

That is my two cents. I would like to hear your opinion, feel free to comment, and thanks for reading.

Tags: chris pirillo, bill webb, web apps, wikis, collaboration, connectivety, opinion