Why the internet is an amazing place to work
The internet is the best place to work simply because of its infancy and extreme potential to mature. It is a unique time in our industry and the simple fact is that while everyone races to produce the next big thing, no one has yet to perfect anything. From writing e-mail to buying movie tickets, our lives have been made easier through the diverse applications and utilities offered on the internet; but the opportunity to improve these offerings is still wide-open for anyone to grab hold of.
I came across Scrybe last week and that really opened my eyes to this revelation. The Scrybe team has taken objectives as simple as calendar tasks and found a way to improve that experience ten-fold! At that moment I realized that just because a Google or Microsoft utility functions in a certain way, doesn’t mean that has to be “the way”. For those that have the time, I highly suggest taking the 7 minutes to check-out what Scrybe is offering – it will blow your mind in an “that is so obvious” sort of way.
Look around; Newsvine is setting out to change how we read and share news. Zooomr is touting itself as a better Flickr; how can Zoomr improve what everyone originally proclaimed as near perfection? Gmail is squeezing in the email mix as the best email solution – it may be a better solution, but in my opinion no one has yet to create the perfect email application. These leaders of the pack are producing great innovations – but there is still plenty of room to grow.
I was visiting my parents a few months ago and we all decided to go see a movie – it was an enlightening experience “watching” them try and buy movie tickets online. Their first point of confusion was not understanding why their local movie theater was not offered on MovieFone.com (an AOL company who only sells online tickets via MovieTickets.com – who doesn’t sell AMC movie theater tickets). So, they went from AOL.com to MovieFone.com right past MovieTickets.com to end up on Fandango.com via a Google search. Seems like a lot of effort just to start to thinking about buying a movie ticket, don’t you think? While on Fandango they narrowed down the selection to three movies; my mom’s first question, “which is least crowded, I just want a comfortable seat without having to get there too early”. Wow, what an interesting thing to say – something I (being a part of the younger demographic) might never have thought to take into consideration. Obviously, capacity vacant based on tickets sold thus far (or some mathematical averaging/predicting algorithm) was not available. So, I suggested a movie and my mother responded with, “well, do you think I would like it”? So, my immediate response was, “well, what else do you like – I can tell you if it is like that or not”. It was like a light went off in my head. These web services can tell us what movie, what time, what rating and where – but they couldn’t answer some of the basic purchasing questions we had. Something as simple as buying online movie tickets, an industry I had thought to be well defined, could easily be highly improved; interesting.
My point being; look around and play with the internet but don’t ever assume the internet is done or anything on the internet is fully defined. That is what makes this industry to so much fun! From e-mail to movie tickets there is an opportunity for anyone to create the next big thing – maybe even perfect it!
- November 2nd, 2006
- 5comments
- I am a proud member of the 9rules network
I completely agree about the movie ticket thing.
Sometimes with lots of things on the internet you think ‘why can’t it just be a bit more intuitive’. Some things are just frustrating. I have to say booking holidays on the internet.
Why can’t there be one simple search engine where you say the basic things you want like ‘less than this amount’ or more complicated things like ‘i want to fly on monday morning but if its cheaper i would rather fly sunday night providing i can still fly back friday evening’.
Yet they are crap and you trawl sites having to fiddle your mouse about selecting airports out of thousand long list. Also your choices come up with ‘lastminute.com’s reccomendations’. Is it that difficult to be able to specify ‘i want a cheap cheap flight’. You hear about people getting flights for like £0.01 from ryanair and think ‘why can’t i get that’. Because i cant be arsed to trawl the websites properly.
The internet has great potential to certain industries perfectly competitive but with some things (like flights and holidays) it is so difficult to compare prices.
Great summary — appreciate the comment. I agree about booking vacations, definitely a pain on the internet, would much rather talk to someone on the phone.
nice article. my feeling is that we are just now understanding what the internet can actually do - what tasks it can fulfill, how it can help us lead better lives. the internet is no longer a self-contained technology. it’s not like having or not having the newest surround sound system installed at your house. the internet has real-world applications that are really very valuable. sure, it’s been great having photos loaded on your computer and then shared via the internet. but now, we’re learning how to leverage the simple technology involved to create services like zooomr or tabblo. sure, we’ve known for a while about “email,” but only now are we realizing how exactly to use it - how to coordinate it with real-world communications.
it’s a fun time. i’ll check out scribe.
something else to watch for - google just acquired jotspot, which is an application-rich wiki. how google will integrate jotspot, gmail, calendar and google docs will be amazing. i signed up with placeholder account on jotspot a while ago, for work, and i’m glad i did, because now we’re using it at work even tho new registrations are closed. but it will be open again soon and it integrates everything - email, applications, cms, calendar, to-dos, project management, blogs, wikis, photos, files, audio, video, etc. talk about a one-stop shop.
I am totally with you. You are absolutely correct — the internet isn’t perfect because we still don’t truly understand how to use the internet (or how others will use the internet). How do you build email before there is email? How do you create the first blog with expectations of doing it right the first time — you don’t!
That is what is so much fun. While innovation is flying at us left and right, we are ALL in a position to improve and perfect the user-experience on the internet as we know it.
The internet is definitely a huge, mostly uncharted frontier. As for what is possible, we are only just beginning to scratch the surface, really. There’s a plethora of unrealized visions floating around either in people’s heads or at the water cooler (”you know what would be really cool…”). It’s an exciting time with lots of opportunities out there for established companies as well as start-ups. I believe college students (and recent grads) will continue to drive many innovations in the internet space because the college experience tends to cultivate a very analytic, questioning mind. They aren’t locked into traditional paradigms or even the current ones. Plus college studends usually have fewer obligations outside school and maybe a part-time job so they can often develop their conceptual vision into something more tangible. This isn’t to say someone who is 60 years old couldn’t come up with and develop an innovative idea after 30 years in the workforce, but I think that’ll be the exceptional story.
With all the development going on in the internet space, anyone in IT, software development, security, consulting, sw management, tech writing, tech support, intellectual property law, etc. will probably enjoy a wealth of career options and mobility within the industry for decades to come.