Desktop Applications vs Web Browser?
February 27th, 2007
This is one of the frequently argued about topics in the last while. I have tried to stay away from it but it seems that I cannot avoid it. There are a few people who have feedback to us that they will never try Hiitch just because they have to download and install it. I guess the terms ‘download and install’ has become the signature of a desktop application. In my personal opinion views such as these are really disappointing to hear. Disappointing not because they are right but because they come from a very narrow and one sided view point. The web browser for example is also a desktop application, even though almost all web based applications are build on top of it. Without a pre-installed OS on your hardware, the web browser is completely useless. Without the web browser installed on your desktop, the billions of web applications sitting out on the Internet is useless. To me, neither the desktop applications are better nor are web based applications superior. They each do well for different purposes.
I think that most users take for granted that because there are already existing desktop applications that help them to do what they want, there is no need for anything else. Some people even goes as far as to suggest that everything else in the computing world should be in the web browser. Which is an even more disappointing notion. The fact is that we need desktop applications and technology in order to access web based applications. Good technology cannot be about one single concept but a combination of many good concepts. The key to creating a good technology, hence good engineering is the idea of using the best tools (or a mix of the best tools) for the job.
Innovation is the key factor that drives technology. Innovation has always been driven by people who can find good but different solutions to a particular problem. And because the problems often differ, the solutions will also differ. Everything else is a matter of personal preference. Whether you like to use your personal email client or Gmail, Yahoo mail and etc. is a matter of personal preference and your data storage needs. Some people like their mails kept on the email client on their laptop for privacy, others prefer them on a pop mail server for easier access with the web browser. The bottom line question then is not which is better but which one best fits your needs. In my opinion, neither one is going to go away anytime soon because both of them are still helping people solve their problems but in different ways.
At Hiitch we follow the principle that good engineering drives innovation and innovation drives technology. We think that social networking and online dating by its nature contains many private information that should not be made easily available on public Internet terminals. Hence, in our opinion we think that any proper solution in this problem domain has to be personalized to the individual user’s desktop. However, the solution must not restrict itself to the desktop but reaches out to other online users on the network. We try to take the best of the web, the desktop and merge them together into a good solution. In this solution we have incorporated good web concepts without compromising security and privacy. Some of the key features that we have build into Hiitch from web based technology are accessibility anywhere, portability of data, community interactions and etc. Desktop features that we have included are direct information delivery, GUI familiarity, security in terms of data storage and privacy of information.
We accept the fact that there will be people who will disagree with us but we also know that there will be other people who will like what we are doing. And we hope that our solution to social networking and online dating will not only meet their needs in this particular area but empower them to succeed in their social life online!
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Filed under: General 
by geek |
You say that in your domain the advantages of the desktop application are: “are direct information delivery, GUI familiarity, security in terms of data storage and privacy of information.”
I don’t really know what any of those mean in this context. First, could you please define them? Second, and this is the crucial bit: do they address real problems expressed by your target customers?
↓ Quote | Posted March 12, 2007, 3:05 amHere is a short summary of what I mean:
direct information delivery = Users indicate what type of information that they are interested in and those information will be delivered directly to their desktop as a notification with options to response immediately. No user monitoring required.
GUI familiarity = IM type interface (eg. MSN, Yahoo, Skype) that is always connected, with features like contact lists and etc.
security in terms of data storage and privacy of information = You can read about our security implementations in this blog article, http://www.hiitch.com/blog/2007/02/14/how-secure-is-hiitch. It will be harder (even difficult) to implement these security features using a web based approach.
‘Do they address real problems expressed by your target customers?’
↓ Quote | Posted March 13, 2007, 12:19 amWe have based our solution on studying the existing solutions and public feedbacks from those social networking implementations. Your question is kind of relative to the individual users. Yes, some users find that our solution meet their needs. And no, some do not. In my opinion, the software industry is not always driven by existing problems, sometimes new software solutions create new needs that was not initially there and solve problems that was never exposed. Our product is constantly evolving and changing so that it keeps improving and meeting existing needs and solve known/hidden problems. We hope to be flexible and dynamic so that our customers can easily work with us to make Hiitch a relevant solution to their social networking needs.
Direct information delivery => RSS.
IM-Type Interface => Meebo
Security => More than 100 billion dollars in online transactions every week
You say: “We think that social networking and online dating by its nature contains many private information that should not be made easily available on public Internet terminals.” But it is the user’s choice whether to use a public terminal. You aren’t helping them (or yourself) by taking away that choice.
I can see how RSS is not currently great for real-time notifications, so maybe Hiitch could benefit from a a desktop client to fill that gap. But you never got into any details in the article so I found it pretty unpersuasive. Considering the 90% of the population using Windows I think it is a stretch to claim that the desktop is more secure than the Internet…especially since the data MUST be transmitted to the Internet in order for other people to see it in any case.
↓ Quote | Posted March 13, 2007, 12:10 pmThanks for your comments. I am sure there is room for more solutions in this area, be it Hiitch or not.
↓ Quote | Posted March 14, 2007, 4:14 amHmmm…. , i was searching for internet dating industry and i came across your post and it is definitely the most sensible thing i have seen in a long time, i have to get my friends to subscribe to your post .
↓ Quote | Posted November 15, 2007, 2:18 am