Comments on: 7 More Reasons Why Web Apps Fail

By: Marty

Marty — Thu, 18 May 2006 19:32:39 +0000

So I view marketing, strategy, and planning as part of the web application, and not external, unrelated forces.

I don’t know which of us is right — I’ve always thought of an “application” as a specific piece of software. Bad software can kill a good business strategy, just as bad strategy can kill good software.

I guess i’m quibbling over semantics, but for my money “web application” is far too specific for the broader issues you are addressing here. For instance:

Well, weâ€™re so used to the online world now that the web app is the store, in both a physical and non-physical sense.

No, the “store” you’re speaking of here is the business entity itself. The “applications” would be the point of sale: either the physical plant, or the online presence, both of which are merely User Interfaces — applications — to a business entity.

By: Scot

Scot — Thu, 18 May 2006 18:25:10 +0000

I’d argue, that in a lot of cases, the web app isn’t the business – I develop a lot of internal web apps for where I work that will never be seen by the outside world, and their success or failure is only guided by a couple of the 14 reason for failure. Some of the reasons given cross both the domains of internal and external web apps (if anything, “Theyâ€™re about making someone other than the user happy” is going to be even more prevalent in in internal apps, where the management who want the software aren’t the ones who are going to use it) but others really are down to business models (like “They donâ€™t charge money.” – I suppose cost centres could come into play internally, but even then any money changing hands isn’t “real”).

By: Joshua Porter

Joshua Porter — Thu, 18 May 2006 15:57:54 +0000

Hi Marty, thanks for the thoughtful response.

I would argue, however, that in many cases the web app *is* the business, and that separating the two is not possible. Countless businesses are hanging their hat on the fortunes of a single web application interface, to such a degree that one does not exist without the other.

So I view marketing, strategy, and planning as part of the web application, and not external, unrelated forces.

I come to this conclusion from the premise that the effectiveness of social applications actually *depends* on how many people are using them, what’s commonly known as the network effect.

By: Marty

Marty — Thu, 18 May 2006 13:36:47 +0000

Maybe it’s a semantic quibble, but this list — like the last — has more to do with why .com business models fail, not why “web applications” fail.

If a web application (in the true sense) performs the job it was designed to do, can it really be called a failure, even if only 3 or 4 people use the tool? No, the application succeeded — it was the failure of something else that prevented it from being adopted by more users. Was it Marketing? Strategy? Planning? Or is it really something germane to the “web application” itself?