The Future is Web Services, Not Web Sites

Remember The Graduate when Benjamin Braddock was advised to go into plastics. The clip is here. It seemed like a safe bet at the time - and it was.

Today the web maybe "the new plastics." It seems like every brand is building a new site or microsite. The Internet feels like Dubai. Some are big, ambitious projects. Others are smaller initiatives like a blog that a small group can manage themselves.

I don't expect organizations to stop building sites anytime soon. However, the Picture-in-Picture Web (what some would call the web services promise of "Web 3.0") is coming on strong. And I believe most brand web sites may not matter in 2012 - unless they have satellites that make the mother ship stronger. The Attention Crash (or what Iconoculture calls "choice fatigue") is accelerating the pace of change. Fred Wilson has a similar point of view.

The leading players on the web all see the train coming. They are wisely creating APIs and turning themselves into plug-and-play services, not just big destinations. YouTube is just the latest to do so today. Amazon has S3. Google has OpenSocial and an extensive library of APIs. As does Microsoft. Facebook is allowing its applications to live outside the site. Twitter is an API first and (eventually) a business model second. Finally, the booming widget economy shows the promise of small content that can go anywhere.

These are the leaders. But everyone - including marketers - will need to think of their online brands not as sites but as portable services that can go anywhere and everywhere the consumer wants. Without such appendages, no brand will ever be able to break through the online clutter such unlimited choice offers.

Comments

[Dino Baskovic]

I liken it to users ripping music and movies off hard media and onto iPods and PVRs. Forget the wrapper, just gimme the goods...

Then again, who will design the wrapper?

Of course, there's always the danger of web service glut. Sure, eschew web sites for only those targeted services you want and need, provided feeds and APIs and whatnot are available. But there are, I dunno, 10 billion widgets out there that show off your Tweets and Flickr streams, 'cept most of them are pure crapola.

Wrappers do tend to get tossed. It's part of any busy landscape.

Oh, and Steve, I believe the labcoats first coined the term Analysis Paralysis. It's all the same.

[john andrews]

You could say that (as you did). But you could also say these companies building APIs are just working the NOW, including the next few years, without suggesting they are smartly predicting a future without brand websites.

That's what I think. They are (wisely) inserting themselves into everyone else's traffic stream, because everyone else is letting them (for now). As expected, really. But later? Let's just say you can't walk into the local dollar store and buy a genuine Mont Blanc pen, or even a fake one in most cases. Oh, and you can buy one at MontBlanc.com, but it will cost you quite a bit.

[Justin Kistner]

Feed readers and widget-based dashboards are great evidence of the web will be sliced in the future. I've said a few times that one day I'll tell my kids about how I had a whole website to myself.

[bilgisayar]

"Today the web maybe "the new plastics." It seems like every brand is building a new site or microsite"

[oren michels]

Steve - great post. We're seeing a broadening of interest in Reuters and Orange/France Telecom. It's an auspicious trend.

[Oren Michels]

(Somehow my comment above got truncated - trying again...)Steve - great post. We're seeing a broadening of interest in Mashery's API infrastructure services. We've launched two dozen API programs for a wide range of web services. What's surprised me most has been the breadth of companies represented on our customer list and in our pipeline, and how many large established companies are embracing web services. Not just established tech companies like Google and Microsoft, but companies known more for delivering non-Internet services, such as Reuters and Orange/France Telecom. It's an auspicious trend.

[Increase Sales Coach Cheryl]

Perhaps I'm confused. Isn't the internet just another media used to marketing your business and all these API's tools that enhance that market rather than the "internet" being a business itself.

So isn't it still just a matter of carving out a niche in that media that meets your business objectives?

[Brandon W]

Humans have the mental capacity of 150 people, or fewer. Recent research has demonstrated this. That would include any Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn friends. Though there will clearly be overlap, this means that your cumulative social network - including physically immediate friends and family - should not exceed 150 people. Otherwise, you're on the road to mental overload. I'm pretty strict about who I "follow" or pay attention to on social media networks. Recently I streamlined by funneling all message communication through a single email account (Gmail) and all social media is connected through Twitter. For example, my Facebook status is updated by syncing with my Twitter. I set up Facebook to deliver any real messages to my email account. I don't even have to pay attention to Facebook anymore even though I maintain a solid group of friends on the site.

The streamlining has simplified my interaction with the Web greatly. Using Google Calendar and Reader I can keep my days on schedule and not spend a lot of time bouncing between sites to keep up on blogs. I use Jott to be able to update my Twitter, Google Calendar, and To Do list by voice (Jott transcribes it and links directly to those sites to update them). I'm using only my voice to manage much of my online communication and scheduling. Cool.

Much like you speak of the various applications interconnecting, I've created an interconnected set of Web applications that allow me to manage my information flow and scheduling with a minimum of inputs and outputs. I would encourage others to try the same.

Oh... and I agree that Tim Ferriss' book "The 4-Hour Workweek" is a must-read.

[Dino Baskovic]

Cheryl: Um, I'm pretty sure I know of at least one guy that would respectfully disagree with your take on the internet as "just another media used to marketing your business."

Good luck with your sales coaching.

[Webomatica]

Makes sense. Open, open, open. Yahoo! failed because it tried to be a "portal" and drive traffic to their site. Google thrives because it points all over the web and their ads are distributed.

[Going green]

User generatd content on the web will take off when it looks professional and it costs the price of a pizza to produce.

The guys at greenlayers.com are really on to something.

They shoot video of professional actors and models in green screen for compositing into professional looking content - video, banner ads etc. Think Hollywood. Their content is amazing.

What these guys can let you do with a generic $20 video clip is amazing. Put a voice over into this form of content and you'll see amazing possibilities.

These guys content is also about to change the banner ad market forever.

I understand they have tens of thousands of clips ready to go and are filming thousand more each week. They launch their eCommerce website at NAB 2008 in Vegas next month. Their current website is a showcase of what you can do with their clips.

Getty Images recently sold for $2.4 billion. If these guys list this website - I'm in...!

[Simon Berry]

I really enjoyed this post as it reinforces the hunch we have been following over the last 12 months. we've moved all our services onto Web 2.0 platforms so that they can be put anywhere. As an example, our Experts Online service sits here: http://www.expertsonline.org.uk but is now accessible through widgets that are popping up all over the place eg: http://www.braf.org.uk/ and http://www.waveneycf.org.uk/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,44/

You may also be interested in this case study: http://beamends.typepad.com/simons_blog/2008/01/turning-the-t-1.html

[carnet]

Steve,

Your post definitely echoed well with us. We recently launched a service called Sprout that helps people integrate all the web services out there into a single visual asset. What this means is that with Sprout you can not only mashup all sorts of different web services such as RSS, PollDaddy, Yahoo maps, Chipin, etc, you can also take it with you as a portable widget. This is all created with a photoshop/powerpoint like visual editor. Definitely take a look when you get a chance at http://sproutbuilder.com

aloha,

carnet

[Andrew Cameron-Webb]

This is exactly what we're focusing on with Sosius, the pick and choose web services model is the future.

[Tjerk Wolterink]

The examples that you give are not real web services..Maybe in a the broad view they are, but real web services buildt upon SOAP UDDII WSDL standards.Most web API's today are not build upon those standards and that does not faccilitate easy integration, to bad but true

[Tjerk Wolterink]

One thing i want to add:

I recommend the following book, it gives a nice high level overview of web-services and why we need them. Also gives a good understanding of middleware and the Service Oriented Architecture SOA paradigma (which is often not well understood).

"Web Services Concepts, Architectures and Applications", Gustavo Alonso, Dept of Computer Science Zurich, Springer, 2004.ISBN 3-540-44008-9

[World Free10]

Hi, good blog I invite you to visit my blog http://mundolibre10.blogspot.com/

[Josh]

Hi, You have made a nice research and I agree with your comments.

[Shel Holtz]

Not that I disagree at all, but don't there have to be sites on which to place widgets and apps? Seems to me there's an ecosystem at work here in which there are dependencies. Take away sites and all those apps and services have nowhere to live.

[Jason Vu]

Website is just a door in the house, visitors want to enjoy atmosphere, decor, furniture ... inside the house and more importantly welcoming masters, members ...(web services)

[Ben Kunz]

Yes, the future is web services, but there is a crack forming within those business models. Most web services are positioned as "free" -- either free online programs within the Google cloud, or free widget applications that allow users to interact with others.

But "free" has a challenge, because these models are underwritten by advertisers -- who only pay if they get results. The problem is consumers are paying less and less attention to peripheral marketing messages as they begin to control the social conversation, and this undercuts the entire model. Deep in the heart of "free" a cancer is forming called diminishing advertiser response.

One way to think of the problem is a shift in consumer "modality," or how people use media. In the 1950s-1990s, consumers were passive recipients, watching TV and listening to radio and putting up with the ads that sponsored the message. This model worked for advertisers, because the fraction of consumers who responded made the expense worth their while.

Then, in the late 1990s and 2000s search engines arose. Consumers learned to enter "hunt" mode, searching the vast choices of the web, and the ads underwriting Google and Yahoo worked because they matched the "hunt" mode of users. The model still works, but it is in decline ...

Because social media has now put consumers in a third "do" mode -- and while "doing," they are no longer paying attention to ads. Users engaged heavily in Twitter or Facebook communications are focused on their peers, not peripheral advertising. Embed all the apps you want, have users toss sheep on Facebook, they are focused on their friends, not commerce.

Twitter is the best example of a wonderful communications tool that shuts advertisers out (although we've suggested in the past that perhaps advertisers could sponsor fonts, Marriott could take the "M", Coke the "C", etc.). The people who make free apps should be embarrassed by their failure to communicate this risk. Sure, Slide.com may have millions of users who have installed fun little Pokey apps on Facebook. But where are the results? And if results are not forthcoming, eventually advertisers will wake up and walk away.

(For evidence, Google "widget advertising results" in quotes and see what you get. In all the vastness of the Internet, not one hard case study emerges.)

This is not meant to slander any specific type of online application. The real answer is not for any single industry to feel threatened -- EVERYONE in business should feel threatened. The Chris Anderson "free economy" is a nice idea, but someone has to pay. As mobile screens get smaller, as there is less inventory for advertising in the visual shelf space, as consumers gain more control over the message creation, and as consumers pay less attention to peripheral noise -- the old implicit bargain that advertisers underwrite content may go away.

The question in this new free web services universe is: who will foot the free bill?

[Jared]

Widget economy is where its heading and I believe services to provide information across many platforms is the key to new internet business model. The expansion of these widgets of information to better serve businesses and consumers alike along web based technologies rather then being served by outdated LAN's is the future. However; there will be a need, and we should start now, by better organizing or optimizing the current net through a shared array of categorized matrices. Otherwise it will come to a halt because no algorithm will be able to easily query more precise search queries for the exchange of information and services across all the platforms efficiently.

[Martin]

Thanks..

About Everythings !

[leeander]

My two cents:

Web2.0 + social hardware = web3.0

Incoming WebApp could not live just on server. They have to live on Earth.

(openspime)

[phpLD]

Certainly the idea that the widgets that power the web, and are used on many sites (rather than just one) if important to consider. Building a widget that is used on many sites, versus building one site at a time can have its merits.