Why is it that all webapps have to be 'fun' or 'social' applications these days? I wrote some software (as a webapp) that I think is pretty useful, but has only the barest and most rudimentary social networking features. I showed it to a co-worker whose first response was "cool". His second response, a few days later was, "I'm going to build a copy of your program, only I'm going to make it focus on the social and sharing aspect. I hope you don't mind."<p>Now, on one hand, I'm not really offended, since my app is just a clone of an existing (but unavailable to me) app. On the other hand, I'm pretty offended that to this guy, software isn't good unless you can socialize through it. I'll admit that there is a natural social aspect that comes out of the idea, but whatever happened to solitary software that just helps you be productive and organized? Why the heck isn't there a simple web-based address book out there? That said, I applaud mint.com and their decidedly non-social approach to webapps.
Don't believe the hype.<p>Right now everyone is talking about facebook, social software, and what have you. But most of these sites aren't making any money, and they never will. It's basically a really crowded market with no clear income model unless you're really big.<p>Find a niche that hasn't been exploited and create software that solves a problem in that niche. B2B is probably the best place to look - if you can come up with a piece of siftware that can either save a company money or make them money they will be happy to pay.<p>If you have ever seen SAP's implementations of ERP systems you will know that the B2B software out there is totally crap, and that it should be possible to come up with something better. And there are real companies willing to pay real money for your software.<p>There are plenty of people and companies and people that want and will pay for useful software, you just don't read about them on digg or reddit because they aren't sexy and cool.
we didn't.<p>the issue is that "we" has been moving, fairly quickly, from the techies or business workers that used to primarily use the internet to, basically, everyone from soccer moms to preteens/teens to grandmas.<p>grandma doesn't need your totally sweet amazon ec3 backup tool, she wants to keep in touch with the family and look at their pictures and such. teenagers mostly want to keep up with their friends and be social.<p>there's still tons of people out there that need useful software, and useful software is a great cash cow. now that population, that niche that needs your software, while still probably sizable, no longer makes up a measurable segment of the internet.<p>i'm building an app that will be marketed to a group of maybe 50k-100k people. thats a negligible percentage of the internet-users at-large, but its still way more than enough to (hopefully someday) make me a nice income stream.<p>edited to add: social aspects of apps are how applications have been moving to monetize themselves while maintaining free-to-use cost. people need to return and view ads frequently for bills to be paid, if the users aren't dishing out the money themselves.
Why is it that all books have to be 'cookbooks' or 'romantic novels' these days? Why is it that all TV shows have to be 'reality shows' or 'talent competitions' these days?<p>They're not. It's just that's what happens to be taking the #1 and #2 spots in each field and getting most of the mindshare. There's still lots of room down the tail; just less people are talking about it (this is what makes it rich, fertile ground to mine.. 90% of the people are only chasing 10% of the pie!).
Maybe you should reverse the question. Why has software development always been about productivity? What is it that makes people really happy, being productive or having a rich social life? (Depending on your needs 'rich' may be just that one special person, but still.)<p>It's funny you use 'a simple web-based address book' as an example, since an address book is kind of a useless tool if it didn't have a purpose: social contacts. In a world where 'everyone' is 'connected' it's only natural to start looking beyond that and look for way of directly connecting the addresses to the actual social contact.<p>Games aside, we are only now starting to look beyond the mere useful and productive when it comes to software, it's a new and exciting field, with lots yet to be discovered. And as an added bonus it's actually already proving to be useful too.<p>Maybe the 'social' is being overemphasized right now, but that's only natural. For a lot of software uses there is no real hard separation between the useful and the social, it just wasn't possible to make that direct connection until now.<p>No offence, but I kind of agree with 'that guy', if the software has a natural social aspect, it isn't really complete without it. It's like a webshop that doesn't allow you to order stuff, just make a printout and take it to the store.
Well everything "social" certainly has a very large mindshare and buzzshare nowadays. This is due to very nature of social apps and also due to the fact "social" apps are relatively new. The buzz of social apps is also much greater in the developer community since the basic ideas are something that everyone understands. Not every developer will be able to talk about hospital software for example but every Joe can talk about "chat widgets".<p>But it certainly does not have an equivalent revenue share. Put the PROJECTED revenue in 2009 of all "social" apps/platforms together and still you would still be at far less than $10bn.<p>You certainly can make a lot of money by building useful non-social software. It just wont be as visible or talked about.
Most apps labeled "social" these days should probably be labeled as "consumer", meaning they are intended to do "business" directly with the public.<p>Consumer websites have one of the lowest barriers to entry in the history of business. You don't have to know anyone, don't have to get a permit, don't have to do anything at all besides make your website and put it online. That's why they are popular to start and stories about them generate so much hype.<p>Consider this from another perspective for a moment, possibly your friend's perspective. Someone you know made something that you think is really cool and useful, but it probably isn't going to go anywhere. Trying to sell the "B2B" route requires connections, years of industry experience and nice suits. Odds are that neither of you have any of those things (or else I'd assume you'd be using them)<p>But what you can do is build a consumer app and hope the "social" side gains popularity. The very small chance of it becoming "the next facebook" (or insert ridiculously lofty goal inspired by dhh here) is probably about equal to the odds you'll be able to develop the B2B connections you need to do a good job of selling the product. Business relationships and reputation generally take years to develop and B2B customers are very demanding. It's theoretically possible (but unlikely) that a consumer app will be an "overnight sensation". That almost never, ever happens with B2B apps.<p>Lastly, we all want useful software. We just tend to talk about consumer software here on hackernews because that's the game we've chosen to play. I'm sure there are far, far less interesting sites out there devoted to B2B software hacking if you look for them.
You just aren't reading enough 37Signals, obviously.<p>No seriously, you're just seeing the hype from SV, which is the same hype that existed 10 years ago, and built basically on the same foundation of sand. There are people out there building useful software, they just don't get the attention they deserve because the niches they fill aren't new, splashy, or "the next wave".
Socializing is both something human beings feel a need to do (therefore useful in itself to satisfy that need) but it can also augment other activities to make them more useful too. The latter requires care not to do "social for the sake of being social in context Y" type stuff though. It has to make sense to facilitate the original goal of the app.<p>Twitter seems to take some people a lot longer than others to "get" (myself included). But I think that's because we're thinking of it in terms of the latter scenario, i.e. what is its use besides socializing? But socializing is a use in itself too, which we tend to forget (us stereotypically anti-social hacker types... ;).<p>As an aside, the stereotype of the hacker as anti-social is quite a contradiction to the idea of a hacker founder, since the founder is a leader, front of the crowd. Us hackers these days seem to be turning that one on its head :)
I work in post production for video. I remember a few years a go when the movie Twister came out how all of a sudden everyone wanted a tornado in their TV commercials. This year, it's super slo-o water simulations because that's the great new thing software knows how to do.
People are fickle and fad-driven.
I wouldn't use the word "useful" per se. Social Networking does fill a need and is useful to a bunch of people. What I'd like to see is more incentive and recognition to those who push boundaries, whether it's in what the application does or how it was built. Like someone said earlier, many of those apps exist, but they get buried in the hype that social networks, etc get these days.
This whole obsession with 'social apps' and the next Twitter/Digg/FriendFeed/XYX killer is really a product of the tech echo chamber. Lets forget all that and build products for the mainstream. I'm really focused on trying to build something that the masses want, not just the niche techie/early adopter crowd. Forget the fun, unless its in 'fundamental'...riiiiight.
I wonder if it's because our generation rarely pays for software (since we've grown up in a culture with Napster, Gnutella, and BitTorrent). We expect to get every type of software for free. So the thought of developing software you charge for is foreign to us, even though that's where the majority of revenue in the industry comes from.
I don't see a contradiction between social and useful. Social networks are not per se useful. But social networking features may boost the usefulness of an application. See Flickr or Delicious as very prominent examples.