The Web Development Elves
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Small websites, tools, and online services, built by independent developers will eventually dwarf the contributions of the major digital creative agencies.
While you were sleeping, the web development elves were quietly building the next great web app. You don't know about them because they're not a big fancy agency. They didn't send out a big fancy PR release. They didn't land a big fancy contract with a big fancy brand. They just stayed up really late and built some cool stuff for the internet.
This morning I came across these great little search sites:
In the lower right hand corner of Retweetradar.com, the developer writes: "google app engine + twitter + yahoo term extractor + jquery = retweetradar."
This is what Open API's are for, folks.
These sites were built by Ben Hedrington, who has a day job with BestBuy.com. These great little sites didn't require a multi-million dollar creative agency. They didn't require a creative brief. And they didn't require a million dollar investment from a major corporate client. They just needed the curiosity, ingenuity, creativity, time, and effort of one clever tinkerer.
As Noah Brier (Holy Crap Facts, How Much Does it Buy?, My First Tweet, and Brand Tags) likes to say, just get out there and play. Try things out. 2009 is the year of the micro-experience. If you wait until you've landed the perfect client or until you've landed the big contract, someone like Ben Hedrington may come along and drink your milkshake.
While you were sleeping, the web development elves were quietly building the next great web app. You don't know about them because they're not a big fancy agency. They didn't send out a big fancy PR release. They didn't land a big fancy contract with a big fancy brand. They just stayed up really late and built some cool stuff for the internet.
This morning I came across these great little search sites:
In the lower right hand corner of Retweetradar.com, the developer writes: "google app engine + twitter + yahoo term extractor + jquery = retweetradar."
This is what Open API's are for, folks.
These sites were built by Ben Hedrington, who has a day job with BestBuy.com. These great little sites didn't require a multi-million dollar creative agency. They didn't require a creative brief. And they didn't require a million dollar investment from a major corporate client. They just needed the curiosity, ingenuity, creativity, time, and effort of one clever tinkerer.
As Noah Brier (Holy Crap Facts, How Much Does it Buy?, My First Tweet, and Brand Tags) likes to say, just get out there and play. Try things out. 2009 is the year of the micro-experience. If you wait until you've landed the perfect client or until you've landed the big contract, someone like Ben Hedrington may come along and drink your milkshake.
1 Comments:
Thank you kindly, your message is exactly mine... The tools are out there pick them up and create something... big is no longer required and as a friend of mine says perfection is overrated.
-Ben
blog: http://www.buildcontext.com/blog
twitter: http://twitter.com/benhedrington
more contact: http://www.buildcontext.com/blog/about/
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