Where does naming these archetypes get us?

It’s possible that the web app genre, as vanilla web apps, has run its course. It’s possible that web apps are about to fracture into a bunch of different genres.

But actually I’m doing this presentation because thinking about these archetypes gives me a stack of ideas that would take a decade to build, and my todo list is almost that long already. Because I’d like just as much to see the apps in the world as build them myself, I thought I’d throw the ideas out there.

Throwing the ideas out is important, I believe, because the naming of “web apps” was pivotal in their development. It let people find a common goal for what they were building, and help one another get towards it.

Establishing a genre is an important component in reaching it.

And because I want to see web apps on the desktop, and I want to personally build smart apps dealing with terabytes, and widgets on tabletop computers, and ambient apps to data-mine my online life… and apps without interfaces that stick onto other apps, as well as apps that are only interfaces… because I want to see all of these, I’m attempting to name the genres and hope they stick.

Matt Webb, S&W, posted 2006-09-21 (talks on 2006-09-03, 2006-09-17)