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Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

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Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#11

Post by rickmb »

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#13

Post by randomhack »

noodle wrote: post #2

we didn't. 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. 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 s…

This "(hopefully someday)" part scares me. And the fact that its in brackets and not that talked about scares me even more.

Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#14

Post by Agathos »

noodle wrote: post #2

we didn't. 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. 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 s…

"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"

What, Grandma thinks disk crashes can't happen to her? Grandma's wrong.

Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#15

Post by nostrademons »

Agathos wrote: post #14
noodle wrote: post #2

we didn't. 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. 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 s…

"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" What, Grandma thinks disk crashes can't happen to her? Grandma's wrong.

That's what DropBox is for. ;-)

Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#16

Post by randomhack »

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".

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.

You certainly can make a lot of money by building useful non-social software. It just wont be as visible or talked about.

Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#17

Post by run4yourlives »

You just aren't reading enough 37Signals, obviously.

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".

Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#18

Post by chriszf »

rickmb wrote: post #11

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.) 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: soci…

No offense taken, you make a fair point.

However, the reason everything has been about productivity is because that is the nature of computers, to automate tasks that would be tedious otherwise. This fact hasn't changed, but it seems like no one's addressing the simpler needs before tackling some crazy "It's like facebook, but with movies" startup.

For my address book example, there are always practical matters to consider. Privacy makes the 'social address book' a very tricky proposition. However, the 'address book with a nice interface' just hasn't really been nailed down (to my satisfaction, anyway). It would be hard to argue that such a thing isn't useful or desirable.

Just so there's no pussyfooting here, I'll clarify what my software does, so you can decide whether or not a social aspect is really necessary. It's a web tool that clones the functionality of 'Delicious Library'. It's basically personal inventory software for your media (games, books, movies, etc) and keeping track of who you loan your stuff to. While the capability to browse the libraries of your friends is a given, generalizing that to things like, 'see who else reads the same books' or 'form communities around specific authors' seems a bit of a stretch. Not that they're bad ideas (I wish I had the time to make them happen), but they're really a separate application.

Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?

#20

Post by wanorris »

petercooper wrote: post #8
mixmax wrote: post #4

Don't believe the hype. 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. 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 com…

And, for the most part, they're promoted / sold in very old school ways.. direct sales, calling people up, taking out advertising, etc. Those sorts of concepts not only seem alien to the modern breed of 'startuppers' but even antiquated.

Yeah, that's the most interesting disconnect I've seen working in enterprise software. Your customers have never heard of Twitter, but they might still use a fax machine on a regular basis.

Our market is nonprofits and state and local governments, and the other surprising factor has been the sheer length of the sales cycle. Sales that come in at less than a year are the quick ones.

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