While attending UTR something interesting occurred to me.
Web 2.0 concepts have given birth to lot of necessary fragmentation. One vendor focused on widgets. Another focused on secured feeds. Another on API mash-up management. They are all aiming to create and tap new opportunities to communicate over the web. In the Web 1.0 or 1.5 world, there were lots of old paradigms from the enterprise days. You had to work how the company was used to you working.
Today things are getting more specialized. You have developer communities, you have social communities, business communities, etc. And you have the opportunity to truly have it your way. And if you can do your work and plug back into the main arteries of business when you need to, no one can say that their regiment is any better than yours.
It’s very exciting because like the need to extend beyond the primordial ooze, web companies are pushing a lot of boundaries organizationally and technically. And integration isn’t an option, it’s a way of driving greater opportunity. It’s also a way to let you migrate quickly to the next new solution.
And I’m starting to question whether Web 2.0 is actually a real thing (i.e. some period of human achievement and evolution) or if it’s improperly named. Maybe this moment is really about when the Web stopped being about technology and started being a seamless sixth element (with apologies to water, air, earth, fire, and metal) that infuses our personal and professional lives. That’s the way it feels from here.
Pankaj M. (our CEO) presented at the Under the Radar conference this morning. Some of the early buzz came from Webware and ZDNet.
Also some blogger feedback!
One reason I believe on-demand services are starting to take off is that during the dot-bomb, everyone and their brother was involved in some way with IT. It was the thing to do, like real estate in the SF Bay Area.
With strapped budgets, a knowledge-gap in internal web services, and a need to focus on core competencies, there’s a missing IT ingredient to supporting SMEs and SMBs. Couple that with the rise in Web 2.0 development technologies, open source, and mash-ups, the everyperson now has all the means to hang themselves properly.
BUT…
Few small companies have IT teams geared towards custom, business-driven applications. You might have one or two IT staff, but their main focus is on procuring equipment, securing the network, setting up email and mobile devices, and maintaining backups. They simply don’t have the resources (and sometimes the knowledge) to build new business process automation for the company. Let’s face it, a new business service, whether you buy it or build it, takes resources to understand the user/customer, the knowhow to create the application, testing, and fine-tuning.
One of the objectives for LongJump is that we remove the IT burden. You don’t have to be a SQL expert. You don’t have to know how to backup a server or write perl/cgi/java/etc. There are no security issues to deal with. It’s all built in. All you need is your data, an idea, and to think through your work processes — all stuff you’d need to do if you were to give the project to your IT department.
We’re looking for pre-beta users to explore the LJ platform and maybe try to create some of their own applications. If you think you have a great idea for an app, please visit our sign-up page. Friends are welcome as well, since we probably all know someone who has a small business or have a small team that needs their own special app.
In the next few weeks, we’ll start letting people log in to get a feel for our platform.
Yesterday, Pankaj (our CEO) presented LongJump for the first time publicly at the Dow Jones VentureWire conference in San Mateo. While the audience was mainly venture capital firms, it gave us a unique opportunity to test-drive our messaging. LongJump is in a unique position as we’re a service of Relationals, Inc. and therefore don’t have immediate funding needs. But VCs see everything, so we felt it was worthwhile to get some vetted feedback.
The LongJump crew are working like bees this week and next as we prepare for the first of our great reveals. We’ll be presenting at the Dow Jones Web Ventures Tuesday, March 20th at 2:45PM and again at 4:00PM and at the Under the Radar Office 2.0 Conference on Friday, March 23rd at 9:00AM.
Suffice to say: "our families miss us."
