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Blogging was possible before all the popular blogging platforms appeared; you just had to deal with all the headaches of maintaining a site. I don't think anyon

by derwiki 18y ago

Blogging was possible before all the popular blogging platforms appeared; you just had to deal with all the headaches of maintaining a site. I don't think anyone has ever claimed that the technology behind Twitter is groundbreaking, it's just dead simple to post an update over it from any computer or cell phone. Because it's now so universally accessible, non-geeks can do it. Which has made it trendy. Which is making it grow. I think one of the most important lessons that developers can take away from Twitter is to make cool or useful technology available to everyone -- lower the technical barrier to entry.

gnaritas 18y ago
> I think one of the most important lessons that developers can take away from Twitter is to make cool or useful technology available to everyone -- lower the technical barrier to entry. I think that's a lesson we developers should definitely keep in mind more. Frankly, it's hard because we forget just how much we know and things that seem trivially easy to us end up being hurdles to the average user and many of us are simply unaware that it's a hurdle. In all honesty, it's difficult to be a software developer for a few years and not come out thinking most users are just plain stupid.
HeyLaughingBoy 18y ago
one of the most important lessons that developers can take away ... lower the technical barrier to entry This is one of those statements that is so blindingly obvious yet insightful at the same time. I really don't know why programmers don't get it: nobody cares about the technology, they only care what you can do for them. I'm building my first webapp. I'm an embedded software developer: what I know about HTML, CSS & web programming could fit into a thimble. But it's enough to build the app I want to do. The thing is, if I were to bounce the idea off a few programmers I'd immediately hit with resistance: "so and so is already doing it," "no, you need to add this..." "why would anyone use that when they could use Excel..." etc. My idea isn't groundbreaking or innovative. I'm just taking a common task that many non-technical people need to do and simplifying it. And hopefully I can make it easy enough to use that they will part with enough of their hard-earned dollars each month to make it worth my time.

by derwiki 18y ago

gnaritas 18y ago

> I think one of the most important lessons that developers can take away from Twitter is to make cool or useful technology available to everyone -- lower the technical barrier to entry. I think that's a lesson we developers should definitely keep in mind more. Frankly, it's hard because we forget just how much we know and things that seem trivially easy to us end up being hurdles to the average user and many of us are simply unaware that it's a hurdle. In all honesty, it's difficult to be a software developer for a few years and not come out thinking most users are just plain stupid.

HeyLaughingBoy 18y ago

one of the most important lessons that developers can take away ... lower the technical barrier to entry This is one of those statements that is so blindingly obvious yet insightful at the same time. I really don't know why programmers don't get it: nobody cares about the technology, they only care what you can do for them. I'm building my first webapp. I'm an embedded software developer: what I know about HTML, CSS & web programming could fit into a thimble. But it's enough to build the app I want to do. The thing is, if I were to bounce the idea off a few programmers I'd immediately hit with resistance: "so and so is already doing it," "no, you need to add this..." "why would anyone use that when they could use Excel..." etc. My idea isn't groundbreaking or innovative. I'm just taking a common task that many non-technical people need to do and simplifying it. And hopefully I can make it easy enough to use that they will part with enough of their hard-earned dollars each month to make it worth my time.