I logged into my trusty googlereader for the fortieth time today and found a new feature! What a great feeling. Before today the “unread” count would max out at 100. Now it displays numbers past 100. To me this is exciting 
I’m a true RSS junky. That upgrade got me thinking… I love how web apps can roll out upgrades seamlessly without any interruption to the user. I cringe when I think back to the days of upgrading desktop apps over slow Internet connections or through snailmail.
Early on when I worked at TechSmith, a lot of our time was spent upgrade planning and debugging. At the time we were primarily selling and shipping CD’s for people to install. We sold to businesses and colleges, so some of the customers would keep installing from that same CD for years and years after it was released. This, to me, always seemed to add a bit of a burden to the customer and to us as producers.
Because we had to ship a physical product, we had to roll out a rich feature set at one point in time. This created a long development and quality assurance period where the customer really didn’t see much innovation coming from the product team. And because our applications weren’t Internet aware we couldn’t connect with the desktop application after the customer took it home and installed it. Therefore, we couldn’t update the software or add features for the customer as they used it. I always thought that was kind of a bummer.
We were constantly working on new features and we wanted to share them with our customers but we had no way to notify them. Upgrade processes have really come a long way 5 years. Now I just log into my GoogleReader Application and see new features. It lets me know someone is behind the computer screen doing something. I’d sure love for my phone to upgrade like this, or perhaps my Digital Camera, or my Car. Marketing idea for a car company: I’d love to jump into my car one day and be surprised by a sweet new feature. And anything has got to be better than this stale marketing the car companies are doing now…
1 response so far ↓
1 dismalley // Sep 6, 2007 at 10:03 am
Well I have to agree you picked a great add to make that point with. Showcasing a world of comfort of luxury and choices. Then driving off one person in a ‘cross over’ vehicle that gets 16/24 miles to the gallon. What self indulging successful carrier soccer parent would not want one? Sometimes I think the American dream is a bit like Autoerotic asphyxiation. … maybe even carried over too far.
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