Workin' Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is making good on the promises made before the dot com bubble burst. The web is an exciting place these days. The activity is intense. It truly is impossible to keep up. In our original newsletter on web-based applications we revealed which web apps we use to maximize our efficiency and encourage collaboration here at Newfangled. Some of these tools, like VirtualPBX and Google Talk, are still happily in use today. But there are many new tools we've adopted since.

The available range of web-based applications is astounding. A newsletter like this can only begin to scratch the surface. There are so many web apps that certain blogs and websites have become extraordinarily popular by simply cataloging and reporting on them. TechCrunch is one of these sites. They have a new tool called CrunchBase that provides the details of new Web 2.0 companies and their web apps. SimpleSpark is another site that lists, reviews, and groups website applications by category.

What's driving this explosive growth of website application development? One reason is the growing simplicity of the technologies used to build them. New approaches like AJAX and tools like Adobe Flex are lightening load of website application developers.

Another reason for the rapid rise of website applications is the removal of a major application development hurdle—the need to build for multiple platforms and operating systems. If you're Microsoft or Adobe, when you build a new application or new version of an existing product, it takes a Herculean effort to release software in a bug-free condition, for all of the various operating systems. Web apps, on the other hand, struggle with browser compatibility. But browser compatibility is much less difficult than developing for PC/Mac/Linux platforms and XP/Vista/OSX operating systems. Website application development is blithe in comparison.

The economy of scale needed to build a traditional desktop application leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of bloat. Because Microsoft Word is used by so many different people, in so many places, and in so many different ways, it has to be packed with every conceivable feature before it can ship. Because desktop applications are so complex, and have to support so much diversity, major upgrades are released infrequently--maybe once every couple years. To justify the effort of an upgrade there has to be a massive market to pay for the work that goes into it. In this way, we all end up paying for features we never use, or even know exist, on behalf of the few people who do need them.

But imagine if Microsoft could offer completely different versions of Excel, slimmed down and customized to every kind of client. Accountants could get a sophisticated version, while I would get a simpler version--perhaps with more formatting options. But such is not to be in the world of desktop applications. The efficiencies of scale do not permit it.

In the world of web apps, anything is possible. A small start up company can build a web app that performs specialized functions for niche markets and still do quite well. The economics of scale, with the simplification of development requirements make slim, niche tools feasible. In fact, the movement in website applications is not toward feature bloat but toward simpler, specialized functionality. If you've been catching any of the buzz around “widgets,” these day, this is exactly the result of paring down of apps into their most basic functions.

For example, consider task management. Instead of using Outlook's task list feature, why not use a simple, web-based to do list? A simple web app would allow me to choose how I access my to-do lists, either as floating desktop widgets, add-ons to my personalized Google Homepage (iGoogle), or embedded in my Facebook page. And web-based task lists open up collaboration opportunities so others can view, edit, or add to my list. Rememberthemilk.com is an example of simple web-based task list application.

The beauty of web-based applications is that they adapt to how I work best. I don't have to adapt to how my applications work best.

Before I discuss the web applications I use, I need to address one of the downsides of web-based applications. The overriding consideration for which applications I use is dependability. It's one thing to admire the benefits of an online application in theory, it's another to trust your actual work to a website you can't control. If I use an online word processor like Google Docs & Spreadsheets what happens if Google decides they no longer want support this application? Or what if they have a glitch and lose track of my account or my data? I'll have lost all my documents.

This is a real concern. This is why I almost always use Google tools over other choices, even when another product is marginally better. That's because I trust that Google isn't going to suddenly disappear, close up shop, or get bought out by a competitor. Even if Google does decide to end a service, as they've done with some of their less popular ones recently, I trust that I they will give me enough time to move my data to another service.

On the glitch front, I also trust Google to keep my data safe and secure. In my opinion, Google is a least as dependable as my own computer with regard to system crashes that could wipe out my documents. And on the plus side, I don't have to worry about my documents in the event that my computer were stolen; they would all be safe in my Google account.

In a perfect world, I'd like my online applications to provide an offline version that automatically syncs my data in both places. Good thing Google Gears was recently released.

Google Gears is a tool that allows online applications to be used offline and sync the data in both places. Unfortunately, Google Gears is still pretty new and has not been implemented in many applications yet. Google Reader (for RSS feeds--you have an RSS reader now, right?!?) uses it. So does Rememberthemilk.com (the to-do list app we mentioned) and Zoho Writer (see more about Zoho below). I'm very much looking forward to Google Gears for Docs & Spreadsheets.

As I mentioned, this newsletter can hardly function as a list of all online applications. CrunchBase and SimpleSpark are good resources to explore all the possibilities. For the rest of this newsletter, I'll review the applications we actually use and mention one or two other alternative providers of similar applications.

A year ago I made the switch from Outlook to Gmail. I took me about a week to get used to the significant difference in Gmail's approach to email, but once I adapted I saw how much better Gmail is over Outlook. For one thing, I like accessing my main email from any computer or even from my Treo. I also love the speed at which Gmail searches through all my email history. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, this is Google after all. I used to have to file my email into dozens of folders to keep them organized. Even then, it was a pain to find old email. Now, all I have to do is remember a name or even a single word from a past email and I can get to it almost instantly. Another great feature of Gmail is its conversation threading. When someone responds to an email I sent, it strings together all the related emails as a conversation. Emails that have had multiple responses and replies are readily available whenever a new reply is added. This helps keep my inbox under control.

Yahoo! has an improved web based email in the works. I haven't reviewed it, but I'm sure it'll be better than the old-fashioned, computer-anchored Outlook approach.

As I proceed you may get tired of my total Google orientation. This is because I generally trust Google. And since I've already adopted a couple key Google tools like Gmail and Google Reader it just makes sense for me too stick with Google's stuff. That being said, Yahoo! is equally trustworthy. If I were not already Google-oriented, I would consider Yahoo's services a viable option for web-based apps.

Even though I'm a Google guy, there's one company that I have had my eye on for a while: Zoho. Zoho's suite of web-based applications have been pushing the envelope for some time now. They have more products than Google, or anyone else that I know of. Their offerings tend to be the most robust and full featured available. In fact, Zoho has already implemented Google Gears for their word processing application--Zoho Writer--while Google has not yet enabled it for Docs & Speadsheets.

Zoho is a private company based in India that seems to be pouring more concerted R&D effort at web applications than anyone else--and most of there products are free. The main reason I have not jumped on the Zoho bandwagon is fear that as an independent company, without an obvious revenue model, they might prove unstable. I have not felt confident enough to move beyond trying out their tools to depending on them. However, they've hung in there for a while now and I've gotten to know a little bit more about the company. I continue to like what I see. Suffice it to say that for any web-based application, Zoho likely offers one that functions better than its competitors.

Zimbra is another web application developer that follows a more traditional software licensing model, offering enterprise-level services for email and calendar systems.

Google Calendar has been an organizational and coordination Godsend. Not only do I use Google calendar for work, but personally my wife and I have been able solve a real challenge in coordinating all our events, meetings and schedules. I can combine any number of calendars in my calendar view. I maintain different calendars for work, personal, and family events. Some of these, like work can be set for group sharing within Newfangled. Whereas my personal calendar is kept private. My wife and I share our family calendar so we can both adit and add events we both need to know about. I can easily toggle any of these calendar on or of to simplify my view. Google calendar can send event reminders as email, or even as a text message my cell phone. I use my Treo's browser to work with Google Calendar, but for a while this was not supported so I just used their simple text message shorthand to add entries to my calendar from my cell phone.

Another nice feature is that Google calendars can be embedded in any web page. Such availability, accessibility, and sharing of Google calendars has made a real organizational difference in my daily life.

If I did not use Google's calendar I would seriously consider either Scrybe's web app or 30boxes. Scrybe was one of the first web apps to boast offline working and data synchronization.

In our newsletter AJAX Website Applications, I featured a web-based word processing application called Writely. Well, Google bought them and it is now known as Google Docs & Spreadsheets. I have officially made the jump. I'm doing all my writing in Google Docs. For the past year or so every Web Smart newsletter has been written using Google Docs. Before I send them out I usually email an invite to a handful of Newfangled folks to edit and review it before I send it out. With Google Docs they can actually all edit at the same time--though that's not exactly recommended.

I've also switched to Google Spreadsheets. This has been a huge communication, collaboration,

and efficiency booster for us. Now management and accounting can readily check up on budgets, cash flow and forecasting. We can make edits on the fly which we all see in real time from any location.

Zoho does, of course, have both word processing and spreadsheet options. And Buzzword is a new web-based word processing system that's still in invitation only beta. It's Flash based rather than AJAX based but their interface and control over layout is amazing, well beyond what Google, Zoho, or the others are offering.

Not too long ago we used a combination of an internal job tracking system, a white board (non-virtual), and excel to manage our projects. As we've grown those systems didn't scale. DotProject is an open source project and task management system. We use this system day in and day out. It is how we coordinate all our developers, projects, tasks, billing, client documents, schedules, pipeline and contact information. We decided on DotProject because we can customize it to our particular needs. We host our own implementation since it's so critical to us. However, there are companies that specialize in hosting and customizing DotProject--Big Blue Hat is a specialist in DotProject implementations.

Another popular project management web app is Basecamp by 37Signals. It's most popular among smaller companies. 37Signals has other products as well, for CRM, collaboration, and calendars.

When I last wrote about Internet applications we were using SalesForce.com for Customer Relationship Management (CRM). SalesForce is still a leader in the online CRM world, but we've found that DotProject, while not a CRM, covered almost all the ground that SalesForce did--at least for how we were using it. We found that DotProject, with a few tweaks and bends, performed both functions for us. SalesForce is still a great provider for online CRM.

SugarCRM though, is similar to SalesForce. It's built upon the open source DotProject system. We looked into SugarCRM but in the end we decided that a pure project management system, altered to perform our lighter CRM needs, worked better than a CRM did for our project management needs.

Zoho has a CRM solution as does Etelos and 37Signals.

When you sell a technical product it really helps to be able to demonstrate how it works to potential clients. In the past this meant lots of face-to-face meetings--with all the attendant travel. We still do face-to-face meetings but thanks to screen casting applications we can do many more demos than we possibly could if we had to do them all face-to-face. Until recently, we used WebEx. But they were a little bit expensive and required everyone who participated in the screen cast to download and install the WebEx client software. Adobe Connect, on the other hand, only requires the presenter to install software. Viewers simply log in via the web and see our screen in their browser. And it's much less expensive than WebEx.

Vyew is another screen cast web conferencing system that has a free option and has no software to install. We played with it and found that the quality wansn't quite as good as Adobe's. I am keeping my eye on Vyew, since free is an attractive price point.

There are a few other categories of popular web apps that I'll list here, but I don't currently use any of them. Some are still a little too young and don't have a dependable (Google) option yet, or whose collaborative aspects haven't been as desirable to me to get me to convert.

I still use my FileMaker pro desktop application for my day-to-day marketing database. I've played around with a web database builder called CogHead because I have a goal to one day be entirely web based. But I found CogHead's speed and learning curve a little too much to make me switch. I suspect an online database builder will be the next web app I adopt. But since Google doesn't have an option for database apps yet, I'll probably wait awhile longer. On the other hand, Zoho does have a database application builder called Creator. If I get too impatient with Google I may spend some time with Zoho's system. Perhaps this will be my first Zoho app.

I don't do many power point presentations so I have not picked up an online presentation application. Both Zoho and ThinkFree have presentation slide show apps, and SlideRocket is specialized in this area.

As I warned at the start, the number of web-based applications is spreading like kudzu. I could go on forever, but I'll conclude with a mention of Photo Editing web apps. I have not invested much time playing with these applications but it is a quickly growing area (as is video editing). Adobe is planning on building a web-based version of Photoshop, I can't wait to see that! Today the most popular photo editing web apps are provided by Pixenate, Picnik, and Snipshot. All these options are very much in beta, putting them in the "could disappear tomorrow" category. While I'm fascinated by the potential of such web apps, I'll wait for Adobe to come out with theirs or for Google or Yahoo! to buy one up before I switch to online image editing. I doubt I'll have to wait very long.

Software is moving online. The trend is unstoppable and even Microsoft knows it. They have deployed their own web app development tools called Silverlight. It's an exciting time in the software industry. If you're still a bit skiddish on the whole idea of website applications I would recommend starting with the more proven applications like Gmail, or Google Calendar. Once you start felling comfortable with them, and see how they improve productivity, start experimenting with some of the others.

And keep your eye on Web Smart and the Web Smart blog, we'll keep you posted on significant gains in online website applications.