Back to the November 2007 issue.

Online Application Cornucopia

(by Craig Cooke, CEO)

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I was randomly thinking about cornucopias, and in some strange way it made me think about all the options available to developers today to build incredible online applications. Yes, I’m a geek. But regardless, the fact remains that a cornucopia of options exists today for developers.

Development platforms such as the .Net framework have matured over the years, and they offer a variety of built in tools to increase the efficiency of creating commonly used features such as a membership area. Also, a variety of services exists throughout the Internet today that allows developers to integrate live streams of syndicated content whether it be text, audio or video. Blogs, RSS feeds and e-commerce modules are all out there ready to implement. However, just because all these tools are available doesn’t mean the job is as easy as pushing a mouse button and voila, the website is done. More than ever, time has to be adequately spent engineering which tools to use in conjunction with one another.

One notable development that recently occurred is the announcement between Google and Myspace regarding a new OpenSocial alliance. This will allow developers to create software applications based on a Google standard that can run on many social networking sites. This means developers can write one application on this platform and simultaneously launch the application to MySpace, Friendster and LinkedIn all at once. Overnight, you can get distribution to 200 million people.

One critical area to watch for is in the mobile market. With the successful launch of the iPhone, applications will easily port over to the mobile market as other manufacturers follow Apple’s lead. Imagine developing an application that gets launched on all the major social network sites, and not only does it work on a standard computer, but it also works on a mobile device accessing any of the sites containing your app.

The efficiencies and economies of scale being created on the web are incredible. It really is a cornucopia of options and opportunities. If your website has not been updated within the last five years, not only does it probably look fairly dated, but it is most likely functionally lacking in comparison to any competitor site that has been developed in the past year. Take a look and see what is out there today. Talk to your developers and find out what new tools they can implement to create a fantastic user experience for your customers.

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Statistics Corner

A recent study by OneStat found that 31.9 percent of Internet searches worldwide were two word phrases, and three word phrases accounted for 27 percent of queries.

According to a study by Ipsos, 61 percent of Internet users would never give up email regardless of spam, phishing and virus risk.

In August of this year, approximately 750 million people worldwide over the age 15 conducted a search on the Internet according to ComScore.

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