Once upon a time people used to communicate face-to-face. They still do, but we’ve added a few more options. Early forms of communicating included cave paintings, then papyrus, paper, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and the Internet. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few, but consider if you will this list. Consider how fast we’ve moved from the telephone to the Internet compared to the speed at which we developed from cave paintings to the telegraph. Communication is speeding up, but the point remains the same– connecting with others!
Welcome…
to M is for Minimize. This site is the blog and professional website of Bret Wagner, a former science teacher and engineer and current web apps creative examining the different ways to remix application development and business strategy to create new experiences.
My experience…
in web development has me coming back to the same point– social networking will continue to play the most important role in the future of the Internet. With applications like Facebook and MySpace helping to bring together friends, social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us and Digg bringing together knowledge, and web applications like Ning available for users to create their own social networks, it’s difficult to deny the momentum social networking has gained the last two years.
This blog…
will explore the development cycle I’ll take to combine existing ideas nobody else ever thought to unite. It might be taking a current application, such as the social networking I’ve created over at Science For America, and making it better, or it might be creation of a new application. My experience has shown that there are thousands of great ideas out there… the breakdown is in getting the marketing, business, and programming sides to gel. Programmers are not usually strong in design, while designers may not be the strongest in programming. Marketing and business model are usually left by the wayside. The most effective applications have all of these elements working together.
Enjoy!