I don’t want a great Facebook app, I want a great Angus app
I’m about to tell you what’s wrong with the internet. You might wanna get an adult beverage, cause this is gonna be somethin’. Seriously, years from you’re gonna look back and be like, “well what do you know, that ugly bastard was right.”
Alright, here’s the problem: everyone is making amazing specialized-task apps that everyone can use.
What they should do: make amazing every-task apps for specific types of people.
For illustration, let’s take Twitter. They have brilliant apps for the web and phones and whatnot. But it works the same for everyone. There are several ways in which people interact with Twitter. Some want to read every tweet. Some want to read every tweet from 6 people, then when they are using the toilet, read through the rest. Some just want to post and never read anything.
So let’s call those ways of interacting T-A, T-B and T-C.
Now, let’s toss in Facebook. Again, they have one app. But just like Twitter, there are many ways people use Facebook. Some check it first thing every morning. Some leave it open all day long. Some keep the chat turned off all the time and only send messages.
Let’s call those F-A, F-B and F-C.
And let’s extrapolate for other services people use every day. Weather (W) and news (N).
So, say my usage profile is T-B, F-A, W-C and N-A. I guarantee there are a giant pile of people who use all those services in exactly the same way. And yet no one is focused on making my use of those services efficient.
One day, you’ll be able to pick your usage profiles and a device like an iPad will completely adapt its UI to the way you use the services. A custom Angus app. The only app I’ll need for 99% of my life.
Microsoft’s Phone and Windows 8 tile interfaces are gonna kickstart the trend, starting with a common usage profile for everyone. But do you really trust MS to do anything?
So there you go. A billion dollar idea for the low low price of free. Now go build that shit, would ya?
