5 reasons why consumer will go for web apps

So the benefits of web apps to a developer are obvious and are summed up neatly here:

Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner who has been briefed on Mozilla’s plans, called them a win for software developers and “an interesting business challenge to the traditional lock-in ecosystem,” but said it’s hard to know how much demand there will be.

“We have a path over the hill. We don’t know if there’s a big city, or a little town, on the other side,” Dulaney said.

But yes, the point is well raised, will consumers be taken by web apps?

My answer is clearly, yes.

Why?

1) We are all becoming multi-device, multi-platform people (even Apple fankids). We want to share apps between devices

2) Those who are single device/platform people live in multi-device/platform families. Even if love your platform, you love your family more and you want to share info, files, updates with them

3) Finding content is fun. Remember when it was actually fun to discover new content? Web apps will find an audience because the experience of finding content is easier/faster/better/ and yes… more fun than banging your head against the app store garden wall

4) There will be better content: Web is easier to develop for and deploy to. That attracts innovation. That attracts better, more timely content. That attracts an audience. That attracts more innovative content. A web app virtuous circle.

5) People care about content, not technology. Debating web apps is fun for techno-geeks, but 99% of normal people couldn’t care less. They want to turn on a device, not worry about compatibility issues, OS’s, plug-ins, etc and just find their content. No other technology in the world can promise that kind of ease. You turn on the device, any device, anywhere in the world, and the web apps are just there.

The promise of better content, better discoverability, easier sharing, and always on access…. so remind me, why won’t consumers flock to web apps?

Mozilla to challenge big players in mobile web – San Jose Mercury News.