Future Tense: AppliNations and the Power of the User Experience

I believe a key ingredient to a good brand strategy is a secure, easy and valuable user experience.

The Wired article, “The Web Is Dead” by Chris Anderson and Michael Wolf might at first glance seem impossible but at the heart of Chris’ assertion is the essential power of the user experience. We human beings want it quick, easy and relevant to our needs and our desires. Oh yeah, and we want it mobile and secure and in sync too.

Websites? Ho Hum. Applications delivered to us via the Internet? Wow. iTunes is a great example and an even better one is facebook. Can you say AppliNation? Consider the amazing fact that, spanning culture, age and gender, over 500+ million facebook members are interacting with the same user interface. People speak of facebook as a large Internet nation out-sizing the analog sovereignties of the world. I think it is safe to say facebook has truly moved beyond “community” to a full body AppliNation. Its 500+ million residents have gotten so comfortable in their daily usage of facebook that any single redesign in the user interface triggers a painful outcry and resistance to change.

I'm a bonafide netizen but each facebook change does elicit a moan from me. In fact, the web has worn me out with over whelming search results, click-o-rama adventures that require passwords and the Wild West spammers and scammers that must be taking their own Viagra to sustain their relentless penetration of my time.

The Internet is truly delivering on the promise of access, transparency and co-creation: it is for the people and by the people. Musing about the future, I predict all sorts of AppliNations will be developed under our fingertips... but only the ones we experience as relevant, mobile, secure and easy to use will emerge.