
Devices for the deviceless - davidw
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/02/devices_for_the.php
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hernan7
Am I the only one that doesn't see the appeal of those desktop-in-a-browser
websites?

Most of the 500M people that access the web via a cybercafe only are going to
be in 3rd world countries, using something like Win98 + IE4 over a dial-up
line shared by 10 machines. Oh, and paying in 10-minute increments. A Flash or
AJAX based desktop analog is not going to have a hard time to work there.

There is indeed a potential market there, but you need to work with the grain
of the Web to make it work. Desktop in a browser is going against the grain in
my opinion.

~~~
davidw
I thought the same thing about browser based email a while ago, but now I use
gmail exclusively.

Not saying it _will_ work, just.... sometimes these things take off in places
you wouldn't expect.

~~~
hernan7
But how long have these desktop-like websites been around for now? I remember
Hotmail catching on like mad in their first months of being available. Not so
much with the WebOS sites as far as I know.

Mind you, I'm not saying that web-based take-your-info-anywhere web apps will
never succeed (heck, people are using Hotmail and Gmail as storage, so the
need is certainly there). It's just that I don't think that mimicking a WIMP
desktop is the way to go.

