Building a web application

A. You need an idea - preferably original, but obviously it needs to be enjoyable, or useful, or memorable - preferably all three. It is a good idea to go with something you know… as this is something you are likely to use and also spot the ways that it can be done better. But this isn’t that important; something that serves some purpose will eventually be used by someone. Part of your idea should consider your market, for the sake of conversation I will presume the desired market is global.

B. You need a community, and visitors - in the world of web 2.0, these resources are largely supplied via two types of web application; the social network, and social bookmarking. If you need a community to make your idea successful - just build an application interface for Facebook, or using the Google Open Social API. A community will generate a buzz of content for your site, using Facebook will simply boost your numbers faster. Social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon will increase the number of visitors that fall on your page, especially if they like your application, if they don’t like it, you may still generate visitors in the realm of 1000 per week. If you need more, you can buy a specific stumble share on StumbleUpon. I said there were only two ways of generating traffic, which ignores the influence of search engines. Search engines are not worth considering; you won’t get much traffic from them initially, unless you are willing to pay for them through advertising.

C. You should have an API and a RSS feed; neither of these are that important - or difficult! But they can make your idea fly - especially if it isn’t very imaginative in the first place… you may just be providing some hobby developer an opportunity to make their idea fly, which will make your idea fly. An open API is the strength of the twitter movement - notice how many ‘twits’ are from 3rd party applications?

D. You should have iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn - let’s be honest; the interweb is a crazy place to work, you just can’t know where your application is going to become popular and why would you care? Popularity is money in the web 2.0 world - so make sure the people who want to use your application can use your application, make sure it has iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn. Facebook has recently added spanish and german.. perhaps chinese will be next?

Last 5 posts by James Little