Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures opened up Future of Web Apps in Miami this morning with his top ten tips for creating a successful web app:
Speed
Speed is more than a feature, it’s the most important feature. This goes for power users and mainstream users. Power users will give more sympathy for you if you are slow, but make it as fast as grandma can stand. Use Pingdom to keep an eye on your speed.
Instant Utility
This means the service is instantly useful to you. If you build a service and the user has to spend an hour configuring the service, importing contacts, and data entry, people aren’t gonna wanna use your web app. There are lots of tricks to use for instant utility like Facebook Connect or letting the user import data from LinkedIn.
When Youtube first started there would be a message saying, “come back in a week or so”
Voice
Software is media today. Just as media has a voice and personality, so does your software. The failwhale is a good example of this; it gives the company personality, attitude and it made Twitter media-saavy.
Less is more
Over time, you can grow the utility of your service, but start simple. Think about Facebook in 2004. Union Square invested in Delicious because the service was simple, but powerful. If you can do one little thing really really well, then you are building a successful web app.
Programmable
Make your application programmable. You have to give others the ability to build upon your software. If you launch without a read/write API, then you are living in the dark ages. More users developing on your software makes the experience richer for all.
Personal
You want want to infuse your application with your user’s energy and personality. The more they can contribute, the more ownership they have in it. Make your app more personable for everybody. Let people customize everything if you can. This can also be a bad thing though, don’t let your users have too much control.
Make it RESTful
Everything in your application has a clean, comprehensible URL. Think Twitter lists: http://twitter.com/mager/design. It’s really simple. This makes your app way more portable because the namespace of your application is memorable. LinkedIn does a poor job of this.
Discoverable
There are millions of web apps out there, so you better understand SEO. You have to build your application from the ground up to be optimized for Google. It has to also be discoverable by social media; this is more important than search.
Clean
The application cannot be busy on the page. You can’t be bothered with a bunch of crap. Big fonts, inviting, and people should know right away what they need to do. Tumblr’s login is perfect.
Playful
Mobile, social, global, playful, and intelligent. Playful is the fun part of making software. Your users want to have fun.
The ability to play in an application is very important. The game mechanics will lure people back in. Think about how Weight Watchers works; it’s a game. You establish goals, measure yourself against those goals, and get rewarded for executing on those goals.
Your web application should have some fun baked in.
Extra tips: don’t hire a marketing person. It’s gotta come from your team. Keep product marketing and guerilla marketing separate.
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from Mr. Jamie
我在紐約的創投朋友，佛萊德‧威爾遜 (Fred Wilson) 前幾天在邁阿密為「網路應用的未來 (Future of Web Apps)」研討會，給了一場名為「網路應用的 10 個黃金定律 (The Ten Golden Principles for Successful Web Apps)」的演講，內容簡單且扼要，把未來幾年的 Web 3.0 時代，網路應用應該要具備的特色，非常精確且完整的描述出來。英文還不錯的人，我建議你們直接到上面的連結去閱讀，懶得看英文的人，我在下面簡單翻譯、解釋並加上我個人的註解。有什麼覺得不清楚的地方，歡迎你們提出來討論。
速度 (Speed)
速度是所有“功能”裡面最重要的一項。重度使用者 (Power User) 或許可以稍為體諒你的網站反應稍慢，但是如果你能夠把速度提升到連阿媽都可以忍受，那不是皆大歡喜？試著用 Pingdom (一個不錯的網站監測工具) 去監視和改善網站的速度，Firebug 裡面的 Network Monitor 也很有用。
立即見效 (Instant Utility)
如果你的服務需要花一個小時去安裝、設定，沒有人會用。Facebook App 最厲害的地方就是只要點一下，就可以開始用。多利用 Facebook Connect 等工具來匯入使用者資料，讓他們越快上手越好。
性格 (Voice)
賦予你的網站一個性格，這是建立品牌的一個部分。雖然大家很討厭看到“痞客狐頭殼壞去了”的畫面，但是至少他讓使用者覺得痞客有特色。
簡單為上策 (Less is More)
尤其是剛開始的時候，專注在一個簡單的問題上面，然後再慢慢加功能。一開始就弄得太複雜，只會累了自己，也撐壞了使用者的胃口。
平台化 (Programmable)
開放 API，讓其他人可以加入開發的行列，你的服務會進步的更快，也變得更好用。
個人化 (Personal)
讓你的使用者可以把產品變成客制化，上傳內容，漸漸的變成他們生活的一部份。讓他們擁有一個次網域 (sub-domain) 或一個個人網址，擁有自己的網頁，提供給他們統計分析的資料 (這點 foursquare 做得很好) 等等。
特殊網址 (Unique URL)
每一個頁面、每一個物件，都給他們一個特殊的網址。網址是網路上最重要的識別證，有了網址才可以搜尋、分享、加書籤、寫相關網誌等等，沒有了網址，你就等於把自己置身在網路的共榮圈之外。
搜尋引擎和社群媒體最佳化 (SEO / SMO)
Google 和 Facebook 是目前網路上最夯的流量來源，所以讓你的網站符合他們的需求，你就會有免費的午餐可以吃。如果使用者喜歡分享內容到 FB 上，那就提供給他們 FB 按鈕吧！
乾淨 (Clean)
太多的選項只會讓人不知道要選什麼，學學蘋果的 80/20 設計哲學，按鈕越少越好，讓使用者可以專注在內容上面。
好玩 (Playful)
用像支援行動裝置、匯入朋友清單、得分、升級、排名等等方法，來讓你的服務更有趣，使用者就會越想用。
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