Entries from September 2007 ↓
September 4th, 2007 — Uncategorized
We had windows, Linux and Java platforms to develop applications. We enjoyed writing code upon these platforms. We developed many desktop applications. We learned how to access win32 apis, java packages and linux kernel.
Five years from now, programmers will not be speaking about win32 apis of java packages. Their discussion will include google Apis, amazon storage services, Identity management services and yahoo apis.
The computing world is changing and also does our development platforms. We will not be wiring code to access the hard disk file system, instead we will be writing code to access amazon s3 storage service.
I still remember writing C code to get the system date 6 years back. But now Ill write code using a google API to fetch calender information from google server itself. Spreadsheets api, gadgets api, ajax api, maps api…… more and more apis are being released everyday.
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September 3rd, 2007 — Technical
Microsoft and windows are conquering new avenues all the time. What ever they may say against windows and microsoft I am a big fan of both windows and microsoft. Without bill gates the computing scene would have been very very different. If my mom is using a computer that just because windows made it so simple and popular.
Now microsoft has its eyes on the mobile domain. Simple mathematics justifies it. There are more mobile phones in this world than personal computers. And they are slowly conquering that market also.
The latest buzz is the launch of windows live apps on nokia mobiles. The Application suite includes Live Hotmail, Live Messenger, Live contacts and Live spaces. The applications are free to download also.
I believe this is just the beginning. Nokia also might switch to windows OS in the future. Many mobile manufacturers are now using windows for their phones. The only competition windows is facing is from linux.
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September 2nd, 2007 — Uncategorized
Once you launch your product, track the usage carefully. Plan for usage tracking while in development itself. Develop modules that can gather usage stats of various features you build into the product.
In most cases product development teams gather the requirement from a small set of target markets. In the web domain that is not enough, as we cannot really predict what is going to happen to your product. Many of your pet features may be ignored by your users.
Building usage tracking tools into your product will help you to analyze the usage pattern followed by majority of your users. And that is where you need more attention and testing. More used features need more attention and testing even if they are simple.
Building dashboards for various usage stats that you collect will be very helpful to get an over all idea very easily. Graphs and charts are helpful to read a lot of stats data very easily and predict trends.
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September 1st, 2007 — Uncategorized
A very common mistake product development teams make is that, they think of a product as a set of features. But there something more to a product, that makes it a success. Every product that we use must make an emotional attachment with ourselves. This attachment is very much visible in the web world. Think how much you are attached to your gmail inbox.
I remember a website that was launched for the youth, when I was in school. It had a lot of features, movie script writing, online discussions, and a hell of a lot of stuff for the youth. But they didnt even last till their first anniversary. The market in india at that time was not ready for such a website. Despite of all the cool stuff they failed to get that connection with the user.
Write down all the features you need in your new product. Now find out the most important 5 features. In most cases you wont need more than 5 features in a new product. Now add to the top of the list the most important feature. “Easy to use”. Easy is the most important feature. Make a conscious effort to make all the products you make easy to use, even if it means cutting down a few features.
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