Are Web apps becoming more approachable? I tend to think not. While they are becoming more fun with new options like never before, I am still a little concerned that many people are still missing out completely.

Remember those days when Netscape Navigator was king of the hill, the Web was poised to take over Microsoft Windows as the platform of choice, and we will soon be running word processors, spreadsheets and photo editors on our web browsers? Well, it didn’t happen. We are mostly still using the traditional operating systems and running the traditional software on them, though applications are getting more and more net-saavy that you will be hard-pressed to find one these days that does not hook up to the Internet one way or another.

But a curious thing happened along the way. As traditional software becomes more net-saavy, web-based software are finding their own special niches and encroaching into the territories of traditional software. For every person that still uses Outlook Express or Eudora, you could just as easily find another that uses Gmail or Yahoo Mail. How many people still use CDROM-based dictionaries or encyclopedias? It is probably more convenient to reach for the web browser and type in your queries. [Read the rest]