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.
Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
31–38 of 38 posts
Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
#32Don'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…
Any advice for how to learn about these markets, for the 20 somethings out there that can't immediately relate to this stuff?
This is something I have been struggling with too. I would love to make a useful web app that businesses would pay for, but all my ideas are something to do with software development, as that is all I know ...
I do try to speak to people in other industries from time to time to get ideas, but have got none so far :(
All we need is a 'social site' that non IT types can post their frustrations with the tools of their trade on to give us ideas - only problem is how we get non IT types to use it :-)
Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
#33If the market you cater for does not need social elements than don't worry about it. Focus on adding value to the people you are creating for.
Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
#34Don'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…
Any advice for how to learn about these markets, for the 20 somethings out there that can't immediately relate to this stuff?
Pick a big company in this market (perhaps SAP) and start learning everything you can about them. Read their marketing pages and try to understand what they are selling and to whom. What problem do they think their customers have that they are solving?
Look for companies hiring people with those skills (i.e. that require SAP experience) and see what they are building (systems like SAP seem to produce value for the internals of a company and it's hard to see what this is from the outside).
Unfortunately the techno-babble on these enterprise systems sounds pseudo intelligent. To see through all the buzz words and fads you need to work with these systems for a while. But to do that you almost have to drink the Kool Aid. The trick is to stop drinking once you can see the better solution. For many people here, I suspect the hardest part is swallowing the Kool Aid (at least that's the hard part for me).
But then as you go to build your better system, you need to realize that you are going to try to sell this to people who have been consuming this stuff for a very long time. They need SCA, BPM, SOA, UML, and just about every other combination of three letter characters. They don't know any other way. It's unfathomable to them that there could be an easier, simpler solution to their woes. It's like trying to describe a 3D world to a denizen of 2D space.
Any how just my 2 cents.
UPDATE:
May I recommend for your first glass of KoolAid: http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247234.html?Open
(not that this is good or authoritative, more so a random sample of what's ahead of you).
Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
#35Don'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…
Any advice for how to learn about these markets, for the 20 somethings out there that can't immediately relate to this stuff?
Publications to Read
1) WSJ
2) Economist
1) Wikipedia: What GOOG, AAPL, MSFT, CSCO, and ORCL have bought in the past 10 years
2) sequoiacap.com (and other VC firms):What they're investing in. It's often pretty boring
3) bloomberg.com
Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are making millions with innovative business software. Stuff that keeps hospital records, does simulations for the DoD, coordinates sales representatives, facilitates B2B, or CRM, or whatever. The stuff making real money just has relatively very low visibility from the web. Most of these companies are small, private, and almost entirely owned by, like, three people. The founders come from industry and have zer…
It isn't accurate to say that "most" of these companies are small, private and owned by 3 people. Most of them are huge gigantic companies like IBM global services or Oracle or Microsoft Consulting. The ones that are small are always worried that a huge consulting firm is going to move into their market.
"The ones that are small are always worried that a huge consulting firm is going to move into their market."
The thing is, huge consulting firms seem incapable of actually producing working software. They have to get the small companies to do the actual 'nitty-gritty' work for them.
Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
#37I 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.
Re: Ask YC: When did we stop wanting useful software?
#38This 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.