7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail

by Joshua Porter  |   May 5th, 2006  |  shortlink: http://bokardo.com/p/408

Update: 7 More Reasons Why Web Apps Fail

I’m not one to believe that we’re in a Bubble 2.0 or anything like that (aren’t we always bubbular?), but here are a few ideas about why some of the web apps out there fail.

  1. Focus on social instead of personal.
    Following up on my Del.icio.us Lesson post, this is a critical reason why web apps fail. Many apps focus on being the new social killer-app when, in general, people don’t have time to worry about what other people are doing, and will only use software that benefits them personally at every step. You could call this selfishness or laziness, but I would call it optimization. For example, we simply don’t have time to tag things for tagging sake. Instead, we might tag things if we think that it will help us in the future, but adding tags to an app does not a solution make.
  2. They solve too many problems, or try to.
    This is when the buzzwords rear their ugly head. If you’ve got a list of problems you’re solving with an application, it stands to reason that you can’t solve any one of them fully. Instead of trying to solve more than one, focus like gangbusters on one problem and really nail it. If you think about the successful web apps out there right now that have garnered impressive mindshare, it should be easy to line up the one problem (or activity) they really get right. Flickr: photos. Del.icio.us: bookmarks. Facebook: college. Myspace: identity. Gmail: email. Plaxo: contacts. Tailrank: news. Etc…
  3. They’re about making someone other than the user happy.
    So much focus is on aggregation right now that it is easy to overlook the happiness of users. Many services, such as Technorati Tags or Google Sitemaps, exist solely to make the aggregators happy, and not the user themselves. They sell themselves on incentives that sound like what a movie agent might say to an aspiring actor: “We’ll make you famous, kid. You’ll get found!”. First of all, this is all talk directed at the developer, who is not the user. That’s a huge tip-off right there. Second of all, if the aggregators had their way everyone would be using these formats, which simply dilutes the value for everyone else and only serves to lock the site into some weird relationship with the aggregator. This is not how it should be. That’s why I stopped using those two services ages ago. Instead, focus on adding features that make the user happy, and when that happens everyone else can be happy, too.
  4. They sell it the wrong way.
    Web apps are not about Ajax, tags, Web 2.0, SOA, REST, or any other technology. Why do so many startups and web pundits focus on these terms when talking about a product? To get a better frame of reference, talk about how your app empowers users to improve their life. Think about how the long-term successful companies sell their stuff. They relate it to some bigger idea. So, for example, Nike has always embraced the hero archetype. They might talk about how great their foam arch is, but that’s always secondary to how buying their shoes makes you a hero. Their commercials are often amateur runners out running in the rain. How cool is that? Way cooler than double-density shock foam. A good example of this in web apps is the messaging from 37signals. They’re not selling software, they’re selling rebellion.
  5. Not in it for the long haul.
    If you build it, they will not come. There is too much competition right now, so another wiki-type application isn’t going to set the world on fire. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about web apps that became successful only after they adapted to their user base over time (short periods of time, but over time nonetheless). Their initial effort didn’t work, or was too similar to another one, but they were in it for the long haul and they adapted to what their users wanted. Flickr is a great example of this. Flickr started out as a game called Game Neverending. That didn’t work, but their second attempt did. Many web app makers would never make it to the point of seeing the light (or admitting the failure).
  6. They show too much of what’s going on, and get gamed.
    One of the big promises of aggregating the wisdom of crowds is building systems that use the input from huge user populations to come up with value. However, as people get used to how the wisdom is aggregated, they figure out how it all works, and the more public the mechanism for aggregation, the easier it is to figure out. That’s why gaming is such an issue with Digg. The voting on Digg is public, so you can see which items have the most votes before you submit your vote yourself. This goes against one of the principles of the Wisdom of Crowds, which states that in order to successfully harness it, each member of the crowd needs to be making an independent vote.
  7. They don’t have an underlying business strategy of improving people’s lives.
    Most business strategy is about making money. However, this is a short term goal. If you focus only on ways to make money, then you’ll make decisions that in the short term seem good for the balance sheet but in the long term actually work against it. Take the case of LLBean. Where everyone else is trying to get away from call centers and move all of their customer interaction to a web site, LLBean actually allows you to talk to a human being almost instantaneously. Their phone number is easily found on their web site/app. This probably does cost them a lot more than if they had some contact forms or an instant chat room, but it sure does make it quick and easy to give them money. My sister worked at LLBean for a time, and I was always impressed by the way that they empowered her to handle customers. It probably cost them money in the short term, but people remember when you make their lives easier, not harder. Many companies, unfortunately, see the Web as a way to reduce direct communication with customers, when in reality it should cause an increase in communication if you’re successful.

Update: 7 More Reasons Why Web Apps Fail

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Comments

1.  Sebastien Billard 8:52am, Fri 5th, 2006

Hi, you made some very good points,especially on tagging. When people tag it is for their own use or their own promotion. In both case for their very own benefit.

Also you are right saying don’t focus on technologies used. Tech is for geek, but real people want apps that satisfy their needs.

2.  David Heller 9:24am, Fri 5th, 2006

Hi Josh,
I think your rules are good, but I have 2 small issues with the list.

1. The most important issue is that your list is about 1 swath of what’s wrong with Web-apps–the strategic or business side. Something DEFINTELY worth looking at, but makes your list seem short. :)

2. On issue #2, I think you are looking at web-apps as “consumer web apps”. There are a host of other web applications where this issue doesn’t exactly play that way. SalesForce.com is an enterprise web app (or more correctly now an enterprise web ecosystem) as an example and I don’t think the rule really applies as well there. Or for a lot of web applications which are basically web versions of enterprise client-server applications (Documentum, SAP, Siebl, Oracle/PeopleSoft, etc.). The level of customization necessary in this world requires that you do more than one thing well.

3.  Josh 9:45am, Fri 5th, 2006

David, agreed 100%. There are many reasons, undoubtedly, why web apps fail. These are only 7.

Also I thought about Salesforce, but as you say it’s kind of in its own league, being an ecosystem. Not sure what the exact distinction would be, but they’re definitely not on par with the ones I mentioned.

4.  Pauric 11:16am, Fri 5th, 2006

Hallelujah!! Its not about the technology dummy!

Is there a bubble? Not really but there will be a shake down of ideas in the over crowded me-too social rounded corner tagging market.

Understand WHO you’re building for and WHY they need it. Never be afraid to ask the most basic questions. A case of the Emperor’s Clothes.

Thanks for the really cool tools Web 2.0. Welcome back Usability, lets see how we can address their needs with our richer UIs.

5.  James 11:19am, Fri 5th, 2006

I’d have to say that I don’t agree with #1 at all. Web apps that are built around a social experience are cultivating a community that doesn’t necessarily need to converse. And without conversations, the user is given a different sense of community. The user feels that _they_ are being served this information at _their_ leisure. And so it turns into a personal experience easily disconnected from the truth that they are also contributing in small ways.

Just my thoughts :)

6.  Pauric 12:06pm, Fri 5th, 2006

Can you correlate being cultivated with accomplishing goals?

If the aim is to provide a social experience then web apps become things like Second Life. If the aim of a ‘web app’ is to address a need then you have to understand the need. I think Josh’s point is that creating these secondary attributes (social association, democratic filtering etc) does not mean you are addressing the real requirements of the chosen market.

7.  Chris 2:56pm, Fri 5th, 2006

Yes! I found the social aspect of blinkpro.com (bookmarking web app) annoying. I wanted to store and access my links, not worry about a site that wanted to leverage my data entry. Plus, Blink seemed slow. Wonder if all that socializing slows things down. I built linkonweb.com – a link storing web app to meet MY (the user’s) needs. I think I avoided your 7 Reasons.

8.  pauric 4:02pm, Fri 5th, 2006

“LinkOnWeb… just fast, simple and secure web based link storage.”

Yes!!

But you include tagging in your social feature avoid list. Tagging can be used for social but primarily its an indexing function and a very useful one at that.

If you think of tagging as a method to dynamically build menus, in your case the menu is a refined url list, then I would say its a must have, no?

9.  Russel Harvey 9:02pm, Fri 5th, 2006

Such a cool article, awesome opinions. Simple and logical yet barely recognized by public. Especially like the preview feature here, very cool. Similar to the author, turly eye opener.

10.  Daniel Szuc 8:08am, Sun 7th, 2006

We still see a lot of “copy” services – I dont think the market could tolerate another Instant Messenger.

However …

There are still so many opportunities to innovate and to develop services that people need based on the power of both the web and social contributions.

Suggest this is where ethnographic research may uncover a whole range of ‘situations’ or ‘scenarios’ where technology can play a major role or perhaps just be the glue to fix something.

11.  troup 12:32pm, Wed 10th, 2006

Josh-

It is nice to see someone bringing this up.

I could not agree more with #1. Personalization and customization will be more important to users in the future. I am speaking in the realm of small web apps that focus on niche solutions.

Also, #4 brings up a trend that has been happening lately. Developers are more concerned with the sites being developed in the “smartest” manner that the sites become very self-aware. I agree that a brand and concept must have considerable weight. This is where loyal users come from.

I think all of the Web 2.0 articles are actually limiting solutions instead of looking at the bigger picture – the user experience.

12.  John 1:27am, Thu 11th, 2006

Mr. Porter job, I like to suggest one more for your collection. We need a perfect model for collaboration between application developers and web designers. The gap is big.

No serious applications can ever emerge with out a solid set of reusable GUI Widgets, which must offer higher-level abstractions that let developers focus on business logic at hand. Imagine writing desktop GUI, without Windows GUI-API. Are you going to implement all the primitives yourself and include in the same functions that implement business logic?

This web page teaches how one can build reusable Ajax GUI Widgets:
http://cbsdf.com/technologies/DHTML-Widgets/Widget-samples.htm

I am a Java developer. I ask Web designers to give us great GUI Widgets and we will build great GUI applications!

13.  reese 10:51am, Fri 12th, 2006

Hi Josh,
I found your list beneficial not just as it applies to web apps, but product and service marketing in general. The Nike example was especially astute. Often businesses will focus on “features” or technical aspects of a product or service to sell it, when what consumers want to know is “what’s in it for me? How does it make my life better?”

Sound advice in your article that can be used in many arenas.

14.  Tim 12:16pm, Tue 16th, 2006

Great list. Of course there are exceptions to the list, but you sumed up pretty well major reasons of failure among web 2.0 startups & co.

15.  Kevin Burton 3:45am, Thu 18th, 2006

BTW… I REALLY agree with #2. It’s one of the big mistakes I’ve seen at past companies I’ve worked for (I’m sure you can figure out which ones).

Do ONE thing and do it well. Tailrank is just a memetracker. I’d LOVE to make it simpler if I could and I’m constantly trying to figure out what to remove to make it simpler.

This has benefits for both the user (less to figure out and understand) and the developer (less code to maintain).

This allows you to plant a flag and OWN the territory. You’re the #1 foobar and no one can beat you at your game.

When people think of foobars they then automatically think of your service.

Kevin

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18.  hammad 11:00am, Mon 1st, 2007

Lack of privacy exntensibility and realibility

19.  hammad 11:04am, Mon 1st, 2007

May be i am wrong

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20.  Sergey 2:43pm, Wed 24th, 2007

There are still so many opportunities to innovate and to develop services that people need based on the power of both the web and social contributions.

Suggest this is where ethnographic research may uncover a whole range of ’situations’ or ’scenarios’ where technology can play a major role or perhaps just be the glue to fix something.

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22.  Anwalt Strafrecht 8:53am, Thu 19th, 2007

[…] Check out the full article here: http://bokardo.com/archives/7-reasons-why-web-apps-fail/ add to del.icio.us […]

23.  Pozycjonowanie 7:26am, Sun 22nd, 2007

This is fantastic. Great Stuff. It is interesting however about the charge for or not charge for this service issue. It is true that the general public does understand that something is “worth something” but all too often the “coders” are so caught up in “the internet is free” that they loose site os the end goal. You shouldn’t over charge for an application, but you should not starve while everyone else reaps the benefit of your hard work. Greetings from Poland

24.  Nathan 2:07pm, Sun 22nd, 2007

Unless I misunderstood, I would have to disagree with point #1. While people are inherintly selfish, this doesn’t mean they have no desire to belong to a community. On the contrary, if that were the case, sites like Ma.gnolia, Facebook, MySpace, Threadless (in a somewhat separate way), and many others would not exist because they revolve around community. If you make any of those singular or remove their community aspects, they die. Ma.gnolia, in fact, has members over del.icio.us in part because of its social aspects.

I agree social for socials sake is not going to work and just because you add a tag doesn’t mean it is social or will work.

The differentiation comes into play with the users learning or experience curve. That is, breaking them into two separate pieces- the initial curve that is about the user and their purpose, and the expansive curve that has its feet dangling in the initial curve, luring the user out of that and into the true beauty of the app. Does this mean the user has to be social? Certainly not. I know many who utilize Del.icio.us without being social in it.

25.  Elena 7:26pm, Mon 23rd, 2007

I have often said that lack of focus is what will kill a web application and company for that matter. Great reference. It’s also good to point out that programmers should focus on the customer experience and not the programming technology that is hip and cool.

26.  ksiÄ™garnia 1:31pm, Fri 18th, 2007

I just bookmarked your site cause you got some good stuff and you are someone to keep an eye on – good luck!

27.  Vivek Hutheesing 9:39pm, Tue 19th, 2007

From an entrepreneur’s perspective, this is “the list” and should be read by anyone contemplating a consumer web startup.

Congrats Joshua, not only for being right on the money, but for saying it so well.

Regards,

Vivek

28.  Dead Krolik 10:07am, Wed 27th, 2007

Social sites must die. Forums – rules!!! ;-)

29.  Tracy@7SEO 10:09pm, Thu 12th, 2007

Your “7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail” was a wake up call form me.. I have been working on developing web apps for years.. I am too much in it that is why I am not able to see it in another perspective..

Thanks

30.  sohbet 10:55am, Tue 24th, 2007

Your “7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail” was a wake up call form me.. I have been working on developing web apps for years.. I am too much in it that is why I am not able to see it in another perspective.. thanks.1!!!!

31.  Noosa Accommodation 2:51am, Wed 8th, 2007

Again Josh, another insightful article. I find that I am guilty of a few (thankfully not all) of these things at one time or another and find it helpful to know what the solutions may be.

32.  Bundesliga 7:21pm, Wed 8th, 2007

[…] And a good link for the day, Bokardo has got seven fantastic reasons as to why Web-based apps fail, in fact he has echoed a lot of my thoughts. […]

33.  Tina Su – Think Simple Now 4:58pm, Fri 7th, 2007

Josh,

I love your focus on users and improving / empower user’s lives. So many new websites miss this point and jump straight to buzz words and social value (web2.0, ajax, tagging etc). I love how each of your 7 points are clearly defined, each containing so much value. Thank you so much for the thoughtful post. Bookmarking this and sending it to friends. It’s a great source when designing that next web product. I’ll be back. :)

Warm Regards,
Tina
ThinkSimpleNow.com ~ Clarity & Happiness

34.  Immotion 1:03am, Tue 12th, 2008

Josh I love this post as well! I would like to add a couple things to:

Problem #2: They try to solve too many problems
Although we have seen that successful companies have focused on one activity, I believe they dedicated themselves to one of two concentrations:

1) Target audience – Many Companies began by first targeting to a particular niche audience. MySpace (musicians), Facebook (College students), and Ebay (collectors) started out dominating a certain group. Their audience focus allowed them to rapidly increase their user base in their initial stages. Dedicating to a audience is still a viable way to establish market share in the web application space.

2) User Experience – Not only did these companies focus on one activity, they overcame an area of the web that has existed for years. How? By vastly improving the user experience: Flickr (drag & drop organization and tagging), Google Maps (dynamic loading of map graphics), Amazon (shoppers who bought this book also bought..), Gmail (ease of searching and archiving). I believe that Remember the Milk is doing this right now with the common to do list. The single focus is dedicated to improving the user experience of what’s been around for years.

35.  Jeff Hock 8:00am, Fri 13th, 2008

Maybe I’m just confused here. Let me take item #1 for example. What are we talking about? “web apps”… Paypal is a drastically different web app than Alibaba, or guru.com, if you’re gonna list reasons why web apps fail, don’t you think it would be important to narrow down what type of web app it is you are talking about?

I think with your website being about designing for the SOCIAL WEB, I’d surmize that you are talking maining about social web apps.

That being the case, you say… “people don’t have time to worry about what other people are doing, and will only use software that benefits them personally at every step”.

Oh really? I’d argue that… the ONLY REASON people use social web apps, is to keep track of what other people are doing… Twitter, facebook, etc.. It’s 100% about keeping track of who’s doing what.

You have a valid point about tagging. People won’t tag, and correctly tag, unless it benefits them in some way. But what does this have to do with, “Focus on social instead of personal”? I’ve said this over and over to myself and I have no idea what it means, or how it relates to tagging or how tagging relates to reasons why web apps fail. I’m lost in a sea of web 2.0 buzz words.

Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this entire post could have been machine written by just regurgitating buzz words and phrases from related blog posts and sewing them together in some fuzzy logic way. Really, if that’s what this is, then kudos!

36.  Michael Durwin 10:49am, Wed 16th, 2008

You hit the nail on the head with the last piece. And it goes for any product or service. See Robert Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer. Just figure out what would make people’s lives easier, that doesn’t already exist, or exists but isn’t working, then make it. Roomba, iPod, microwave, lighter, dishwasher are all examples of products that make users’ lives easier and better.

To Jeff Hocks comments:
focusing on social instead of personal means that these apps are looking at how to best create an app that is targeted “social network groups”. That’s just another way of saying they’re looking at the bottom line: numbers. If you consider instead creating an app that focuses on the personal experience, you’re better off. Create something that appeals to someone on a personal level and they’ll use it and share it, taking care of the social aspect of distribution and usage. You can’t satisfy all of the people all of the time, but if you focus on pleasing some of the people, they’ll spread the word.

37.  Jordy de Jager 1:39pm, Sat 31st, 2009

@Jeff Hock: Unfortunatelly I cannot agree with your comment [...Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this entire post could have been machine written by just regurgitating buzz words and phrases from related blog posts and sewing them together in some fuzzy logic way.]
To me this article/topic really makes sense.

38.  Jack Cooper 9:13am, Mon 16th, 2009

You hit the nail on the head with the last piece. And it goes for any product or service. See Robert Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer. Just figure out what would make people’s lives easier, that doesn’t already exist, or exists but isn’t working, then make it. Roomba, iPod, microwave, lighter, dishwasher are all examples of products that make users’ lives easier and better.

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It’s interesting point of view on 7 Reasons Why Web Apps Fail.

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