Wall applications

A couple of days ago, a friend sent me a message: "I am so glad that we were finally able to chat without meeting and walking."

He, of course, was joking. This message he sent using Yobongo - real-time chat, based on geolocation. Earlier this day, we had a similar conversation in GroupMe . And before that - in Beluga . And HeyTell . And Facebook messages.
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But this joke has serious overtones. Increasingly, I find myself running up the wall. I use too many identical applications, although none of them can be called useful. And in fact, in my life there are just too many applications. I hit the ceiling.


Of course, right now I use a lot of things. Next week I am going to SXSW , so that I simultaneously test from five to ten new applications that will be launched there. What does not change the essence - it is waiting for everyone. The average user will climb a little longer on this wall, sooner or later hitting the ceiling.

In this light, it turns out that applications are just new sites. You can view a huge amount of them, and by finding those that you like to open them all day long again and again. In very rare cases, a new website falls into such a mandatory program.

Technologies like RSS, and now social filters like Twitter, have helped polish this rough surface for the web. But nothing like this for mobile applications does not yet exist. The closest ones are Push Notifications and apps like Boxcar (notifications) and Chomp (filter). And even if there was some direct way to get the necessary information from the applications, it would still have to organize them into groups. And, again, their number is limited. At least the human factor.

I am wondering what percentage of application developers understand this. The app world abounds because mobile platforms are showing explosive growth. And every time when it rains demand, mushrooms grow the same applications. And they all think that they are in the right place, at the right time.

We saw it a year ago with geolocation applications. There were so many of them that a huge subset arose. The truth is that not many of them have broken off. For each winner ( Foursquare ) and its smaller counterparts ( Gowalla , SCVNGR , etc.) there are dozens of others who did not succeed, fail, or fail.

Now Facebook and Google are firmly established in the same space, and we no longer see so many geolocation innovations. Now the waves are going in a different direction - photo sharing and group messaging applications. Now these areas are simply boiling, and for those who are brewed in it they give a lot of waste paper, so everyone piles up at once.

For some, this strategy will work. But these will be the very two or three applications in each of the subsets, the best. This does not mean that you do not need to discover new things for yourself, this is what you need to keep in mind.

Obviously, if you really believe that you have the best application in the field, you have to rush to victory. Invest everything and do not stop until you achieve a result. Definitely there should be some luck in this, but as a result, all the cream will go to you. It’s notorious, but Facebook was not the first social network - it was the best.

But the latter is the exception rather than the general rule. And I think that a lot of application creators do not believe that they are the best. Maybe they hope someone else thinks so. But it is not.

Here is a simple test: if you had to copy your functions from a competitor, you are not the best. This does not mean that "the best do not steal." Of course they do. But rarely does a startup become the best at the expense of such copying, rather, it is done in order to stay on top, and because you can afford it. Facebook, again, is a good example.

Here's the thing: what makes a start-up or application the best is impossible to copy, because these are not some “possibilities” or “functions”. This is the foundation of a startup that has reached the mass user. The thought that comes from the beginning and which cannot be traced.

But many who today play in the field of applications, simply depict those functions and ideas that work for others. They climbed on someone else's wave, hoping to jump along with everyone. Most, of course, do not recognize it out loud. But I am sure many people understand this in their heads. And if you are one of these people - know that the goal is very unlikely to justify the money spent, and time. Very unlikely.

Such is the harsh reality. But it is a reality.

Instead of writing “I also!” Photo apps, or “TRY ME!” Programs for group messaging, why not try something completely new? Why it is impossible to do something that no one else has ever done? It is definitely easier to say than to do - but I am sure that it is not easier to flounder in a redundant subset.

Mobile OS is an absolutely accurate target today. New form factors and freedom regarding the barriers of "computer" programming open up tremendous opportunities to do something that has not yet happened. In fact, we only superficially looked at the ocean.

At the same time, this surface is already highly polished. Every day, hundreds of new applications are released, which means each user is getting closer to their ceiling. It also means that new applications should not just be “good” in order for them to be noticed, they should be “awesome”.

The ceiling of applications has one simple rule: one application per input - one per exit. This means that when you install a “good” application, you are likely to replace it with another. And if you do not develop an application that will stand on the homescreen of each iPhone or Android phone, you are not aiming high enough.

This was said by the person who just hit the ceiling of the applications.