Web Based Applications

By Bruno Auger On November 17, 2008 Posted under Web 2.0

In discussing Web 2.0, it is an essential topic to cover that we discuss online applications because it is the rage these days.  Just two weeks ago, Google released its Web browser called Google chrome that has a special feature of dedicating special Windows freebies online applications.  Also, Firefox and Internet Explorer are continuously driving and modifying their Web browsers to fit such Web 2.0 model for use in online applications.  It is therefore a good thought to keep in mind in discussing online applications that its popularity is driving many of the major computer manufacturers and website owners to modify their existing products to address the needs of consumers and to drive their business model upwards.

What, in the first place, are online or Web applications?  In order to be able to understand it, we must first think of traditional off-line applications.  Off-line applications are those programs which we are used to in order to accomplish our tasks in the computer such as the word processors and spreadsheets of Microsoft, the Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, media players such as iTunes and Windows media player, and a host of other programs that we associate with what they can do with a computer.

As the days of the Internet grew in popularity for sharing has arrived with such interactions online, users began to transfer such documents and files between one another and across a large groups.  For example, newspapers which traditionally edited articles among their writers, editors, and lay out artists through passing off printed documents, have suddenly discovered that it is more efficient and less costly to e-mail such Word documents and files to one another.  However, that is the limitation.

With online applications of word processors, however, such as the free service have below documents, writers and editors, as well as other individuals who need to perform in the project, could be able to collaborate with each other at real time, and activity previously impossible with off-line applications.  Then limits of such new applications found online could not be seen because they could range from writers, editors, to accountants using online financial applications, the photographers using online pictures sharing applications, to video enthusiasts and directors using online video sharing applications, and the list goes on.

However, one of the issues which definitely has to be addressed by users, creators, and developers of online web applications is the security issues which are involved.  Understand that documents and finances are sometimes sensitive only to private eyes only and making them available online creates the danger of hackers and other malicious users to be able to access them.  Just imagine a document of transferring gold bullion us from one bank to another and the various security details that would go with a convoy to be available to anyone who could be able to access it.  Also, just imagine the vulnerability of a firm when its cost-benefit structures of accounting are made available to its direct competitors.

 Bruno Auger

Tags: Web2.0, video sharing, Web Applications, picture sharing