Filed under: Internet, Video, Blogging, Web services, Social Software
Dev Chair : Web 2.0 and future of desktop blogging clients
On the blogging front, most of the popular blogging systems (Blogger, Vox, TypePad, WordPress, etc.) have incorporated some degree of rich/WYSIWYG editor to make life easier for bloggers. Some of them integrate with other Web 2.0 applications (e.g. Vox with Flickr and YouTube, Flickr with blog systems) to allow users aggregate their disparate content. Does this mean the slow death of desktop blogging clients?
As the developer of ecto for Windows, I do not think this will be the case but, I do think the role of desktop blogging clients will be changed and diminished. Before the slickness of Web 2.0 applications, users stored their notes, photos and videos on their computers. So an offline desktop blogging client makes sense as users compose blog post and include other media content from their local collection. But as Web 2.0 applications improve and provide smoother and richer user experiences, users begin storing their content online instead. This allows a complete online workflow and is fantastic for mobile users as well, since they can work on their laptop while traveling then finish it up on their desktop once they get back to the office/home without the complicate process of syncing the two computers.
So it would seem that there will no longer be a need for a desktop blogging client to manage their content. But what if there is no internet connection? While municipal Wi-Fi networks are springing up in many metro cities (notably San Francisco, Portland, etc.), airlines are considering installing Wi-Fi access points on planes, internet connections are still not ubiquitous. There are still many instances where internet connection is either not available or provided by a service for which the user has not signed up with. What users need then is the ability to edit their content while not connected to the internet. These are the instances where an offline desktop blogging client shines. Users can continue to work on their blog post while disconnected and publish the content when the next access point becomes available. This would be impossible with a web application.
What Web 2.0 has done though is changed the nature of desktop blogging clients. Most of the clients now include features that integrate with Web 2.0 applications. We rely on online content so much nowadays that it is almost impossible to work in isolation on the desktop without touching, let's say, Google or Wikipedia.
"Web 2.0 desktop application", that is what I would categorize them. Oxymoronic, I agree, but it also describes neatly the nature of these desktop applications.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dp said 5:20PM on 4-09-2007
Other users might trust online storage facilities, but I don't. Other users might also put up with the crude functionalities of Web 2.0 applications, but nothing beats a fast, fully-featured desktop application. Would you use a Web2.0 version of Photoshop, Nero, Premiere, WaveLab, etc? I wouldn't. No point in it. Same logic applies to blog clients. They are faster, more configurable. Better.
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Alex Hung said 5:52PM on 4-09-2007
While desktop blogging clients are nice and fast, their growth is on much flatter curve than web clients. The post composing page in Vox is close to what the last generation desktop clients are capable of, so I would imagine that it can only get better.
As for trusting online storage, it is an important issue for business data. But for blogging, there isn't much that are not supposed to be public/published already so I think the issue is less pertinent.
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country mouse said 11:48AM on 4-10-2007
Web 2.0 is great if you're a tab (temporarily able-bodied). As you age or have accidents, you lose the ability to use a keyboard and mouse or see the screen. Web 2.0 applications are notoriously handicapped hostile. They exclude people using accessibility devices such as speech recognition or text-to-speech.
My other objection to Web 2.0 is the "we own your data" mindset. try moving a blog, files, or your photos to a competitor's site. It's an eye-opening experience. It also highlights that Web 2.0 does not eliminate the multiple machine synchronization problem, it only exacerbates it. What we need is someone with some money who is willing to fund development of a good synchronization tool and protocol.
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Shawn said 1:00PM on 4-10-2007
I think products like Adobe Apollo will make developing an offline version of a Web 2.0 site easier for web developers. The ability for hybrid apps to go on and offline is a great next step for our favorite web apps such as blogs, photo galleries and social networks.
Read about Apollo at: http://3terra.com/blog/default.aspx?id=51&t=Adobe-Brings-Rich-Web-Apps-to-Desktop
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Chris G said 12:58PM on 4-24-2007
I prefer to use an offline blogging client as it is quite simply less hassle. Just load up, type and post. No need to go the blog site, login, find the post page then post. It's not much but if you blog a lot the saved seconds soon add up.
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Josh Madison said 7:13PM on 4-26-2007
While everyone talks about Web 2.0, slowly firms like thirteen23 are preparing for Desktop 2.0. Take a look at their WPF/Vista demos, then decide whether the desktop is dead.
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Alex Hung said 11:32PM on 4-26-2007
@Chris G, I agree. WPF in Vista definitely will revitalize desktop application.
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