

Fred Wilson's Principles of Successful Web Apps - GVRV
http://carsonified.com/blog/business/fred-wilsons-10-golden-principles-of-successful-web-apps/

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alexro
I think Fred has become too focused on the specifics of his recent companies.

Is Google programmable? Is Gmail a media and also programmable? Is Amazon
playful? That applies even more to the myriad of smaller companies which are
successful anyways.

Advice #11 : be cautious of advice.

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dabent
Maybe you don't have to hit all the numbers to make things work. I see Google
as hitting numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and maybe even 10. Actually, Google
has APIs, so it is programmable. Just thing of the useful or playful mashups
people have created with the maps API.

Amazon might not be "playful" on it's own, but comments like the first one one
this item add to the fun: [http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-
Sleeve/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Three-Wolf-Short-
Sleeve/dp/B002HJ377A)

I look at Etsy as an example of a site that tries to hit all 10. Their API
isn't read/write yet, so maybe it isn't fully programmable.

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alexro
I don't see how Google Search and Gmail (the 2 core products) are playful. The
search is also non-personal, non-programmable, non-restful and to most people
it's just the search that works. Gmail is non-clean.

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JarekS
I think that "Software is Media" is one of the most important things we all
should have in mind. Company should fight for something, polarize audience and
never ever try to be everything for everybody.

We don't see that too much in the marketplace.

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Hoff
Applications in the Apple AppStore look and work like media.

Media that can use in-app purchase to acquire more media, too.

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brlewis
"We really think if it’s a read-only API, it might as well be RSS." Corollary:
If RSS is sufficient for your read-only API, stick with RSS.

Read-write APIs are useful, but proceed with caution.
[http://friendfeed.com/gabe/82458dfe/api-design-is-like-
sex-m...](http://friendfeed.com/gabe/82458dfe/api-design-is-like-sex-make-one-
mistake-and)

So far for OurDoings I've only implemented 3rd-party read/write APIs, allowing
integration with the Picasa desktop client, ping.fm, and hellotxt. When
Pixelpipe approached me about an API I just had them use the ping.fm "custom
URL" API I had implemented. But eventually I'll need to make some serious
design decisions and create an API that gives read-write access to unique
features.

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nathanwdavis
It's ironic that the first thing I did was bookmark this page on delicious
because I couldn't read it all right away. As I'm finishing it up later on I
notice he's a big fan of delicious.

