I need to coin a term

[yesthattom]

APIs give way to applications that nobody would have thought of before, or no business would have funded. I keep getting surprised by new apps that, if I described them to you, you would say, “That’s USELESS!” and yet, dozens of people find it useful.

It’s like a “narrow cast” for applications.

We really need to coin a term around this. “napplications” sounds terrible.

Note to self: work on tis

Comments

[ladyinfidel.livejournal.com]

off topice - you say on linked in, good is hiring?

[ladyinfidel.livejournal.com]

and yeah, i can spell

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

Any particularly interesting examples?

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

is there a reason why 'vertical market' doesn't apply in this case? I mean of course the application isn't the market, so maybe what we're looking for is a buzzword to describe an application that serves a vertical market.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Google is hiring! www.google.com/jobs for our current list. Email me personally before you submit a resume for some, um, tips.

[ladyinfidel.livejournal.com]

thanks then, i will!

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

A few that I can't say publicly yet.

However one I can be public about is that my internal corporate training team used the Google Calendar API so that when you sign up for a class, the class is added to your calendar (we use GCal internally at my company for all employees).

Some others are things like, well, a mapping application that only helps people in a particular city, but people in that city can't live without it.

The other examples are better... damn... very frustrating. Hopefully I'll be able to talk about them in due time.

[hcoyote.livejournal.com]

Shorten it. Call them Naps. Because no one realizes the usefulness of a nap until after they've experienced one. ;-)

[baerana.livejournal.com]

i like it, but i'd have NAPs mean "niche applications"

[hcoyote.livejournal.com]

ooo!

Yes! even better.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

So, then, what would make a "wet NAP"?

[sweh.livejournal.com]

Why am I getting pre-bubble deja-view moments? Thousands of people have ideas, most are useless. Pre-bubble they all got venture capital. Today... not so much.

In 1997 the company I worked for (MPN) was a leader in web development. But our parent company decided that our work wasn't core to the company. So the big big (biggest ever) customer we'd just won decided to fund us as an independent (it was part of their government remit to fund startups). And I did the sums. And said no. Because of me the company never started. The other people would have said yes. But I said no.

I could have been a dot-com millionaire.

I could have been a dot-com bust.

I took the path of safety. I did the sums and didn't take the risk. I think I did the right thing!

Web services and APIs (especially Google and Amazon ones) give rise to a lot of innovative and interesting applications. Most (nearly all; all?) will not be commercially viable. The rest will be "community" supported apps with limited (but maybe vigorous) support.

And this is nothing new. This is EXACTLY what the open source world is all about. Applications built around third party APIs are... just another app. Becuase of how the current APIs are promoted, "web applications" is as good a term as any, but it's not anything new or unique nor deserving of a unique name

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I think a big difference about Naps (or whatever) is that they CAN'T make money because they are too niche. They are non-bubble. However, the frameworks that make them possible might have dot com hysteria around them, sure. But that's different because that could be monatized if done right.

A lot of companies in the bubble era were selling a "feature" disguised as a "product". Pets.Com would have been an excellent -feature- of a large pet supply company. Trying to make a product around it is stupid, and it flopped.

In fact, the fact that they can't make money directly is very appealing to me for some reason.

[mtnvwpilot.livejournal.com]

It's the "long tail" for applications...

If you've got to develop the whole infrastructure to support them, from the bare racks on up, you're right, niche apps aren't worth it.

But if you've already _got_ the infrastructure (as Google does, for example), though, then it's a much different proposition... Then they're just a little bit of incremental work to produce more traffic for your platform; it's just that many more people seeing AdWords boxes, for example. And if one of the "niche apps" unexpectedly becomes a big hit, so much the better.