App 2.0


Remember the early 2000s when the web re-emerged from the dot-com crash? When web sites no longer made you wait after each click, and were filled with snazzy animations and fast response times? When the blue link was replaced with thought-out design?

That was Web 2.0 and everyone wanted to be a part of it. Restaurants, hair salons, and you-name-it were getting online and building their own web sites.

The same thing is happening again, but now, it’s for mobile. Every web site, is now mobile-friendly, and every business wants to build an app. Any service that could be on-demand, needs to have an on-demand app. Banking, flower shops, food delivery, coffee shops, pharmacies, even airlines have their own apps.

We’re officially in App 2.0!

Here are some technical differences between App 1.0 and App 2.0 technologies:

App 1.0
App 2.0
Minimal Connectivity Required
Internet Connection Required
Low Data Usage
High Data Usage
SMS
Push Notifications
Custom Login
Social Login
HTML UI or Basic Native UI
Custom Native UI
Pull model for information
Push model for information
Platform-specific dev tools
Emergence of platform-agnostic dev tools
Single Player
Multiplayer

And here are some real-world app evolutions for comparison:

App 1.0
App 2.0
Camera
Instagram
Video Camera
Vine, Periscope
SMS
WhatsApp
Mail
Gmail, Mailbox
iTunes
Spotify
Downloads, File Viewer
Dropbox
New York Times (circa 2008)
Flipboard
ESPN (circa 2008)
Bleacher Report
Angry Birds
Clash of Clans
If history is a guide, Silicon Valley can't be in an App bubble; we've already crossed the 2.0 chasm.

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