Meta trends - what have we learned?

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Dec 25, 2013 at 08:18 PM

Just over 5 years ago I wrote a brief ‘wishlist’ of features for my information management tools: http://www.outlinersoftware.com/messages/viewm/4514

Quite surprisingly (for me), the debate continues, even though I believe that the points I then identified are now confirmed trends.

There’s more of course: interoperability has shifted to the web domain, with ecosystems of applications now growing around Evernote and Google Apps just as they once grew around Outlook. Computer use is still expanding and, as a result, programmes are becoming more ‘intuitive’, often at the expense of capability; I consider the trend towards mobile apps in this context, simply because I consider smartphones and tablets computers. Everything is becoming ‘social’, everything should be ‘shareable’, at the same time that privacy concerns are growing.

Last but not least, a growing number of users—be it age- or culture-related, or both—expect their tools to be offered for free. I wrote elsewhere about this so I will not elaborate further here. But is it any wonder that most independent developers are not prepared to take major risks, by investing in innovative, powerful and—consecutively—complex applications?