Cloud experience development: the new essence

application development >>> web development >>> mobile development >>> ???
This was the well known route for the development of usable, now we would call consumable values delivered on top of computing, then ICT technologies over the last 50 years or so. Now we are at the point when a new naming is required since neither of the previous ones is satisfying the proper description of truely successful development practices. So a big question is left hanging in ther air at the moment.

“Cloud experience development” as my answer to the question of proper naming is coming quite easily and naturally as it stems from the very fact that I started this “trend tracking” blog more than 2 years ago under the umbrella of “Experiencing the Cloud” which was already well founded with the recognition of the fact that cloud computing is “fueled by 3.5G/3.9G, SoC & reflectivity” in its technological bases. The same way as microprocessors were fueling the personal computing revolution 25+…30+ years ago. What resulted then in the personal computing experience we are all familiar with.

The reason for introducing my own suggestion with this post now is based on recent observation of growing confusion that exist about this problem in the open. A simple search about the fashionable “apps are dead” declaration (with 10,800 hits currently) is showing perfectly the current controversy as there you can find equally good arguments for and against that declaration in abundance.

Browsing through that stuff I found that one opinion leader stands out of the crowd of many others. He is Charlie Kindel. In his last public appearance about “The Future of Mobile” [cek.log, Aug 28, 2012] he is concluding that “the industry is moving from an apps world to an experiences world” where the simplest definition of an experience is an all kind (eg. the whole Madonna ‘experience’) of “stuff over time” while in more detail he defines it by the following slide:

as well as in a kind of “more scientific way” by the following formula:

For this see his posts of Experience = Stuff / Time [cek.log, Apr 2, 2012] and Brand is a Critical Part of the End-to-End Experience [cek.log, Apr 1, 2012] as the “foundational”articles for his way thinking.

His “The Future of Mobile” [cek.log, Aug 28, 2012] article contains an embedded video record as well, alternatively you can watch his Aug 28 “The Future of Mobile” presentation [ustream, Aug 28, 2012]:

then you can read additional articles by him on the same subject (see his slides on SlideShare as well):

• A Mouse and Keyboard Don’t Make a Hardware Company[cek.log, July 25, 2012]
• Apps Must Be Cross Platform[cek.log, July 24, 2012]
• Windows Phone is Superior; Why Hasn’t it Taken Off?[cek.log, Dec 26, 2011]
• Google Will Abandon Android[cek.log, March 31, 2012]
• Fragmentation Is Not The End of Android[cek.log, Jan 14, 2012]
• Experience = Stuff / Time[cek.log, Apr 2, 2012]
• Brand is a Critical Part of the End-to-End Experience[cek.log, Apr 1, 2012]
• Wanna Compete with Apple? Focus on Experiences [cek.log, June 7, 2012]

In fact I found his “experience concept” so well thought out and formulated that I do not need to elaborate on the “cloud experience development” concept introduced here, except the fact that the “experiences” are limited to “cloud experiences” here. The same components are here, just limited to all kinds of cloud experiences. I need to warn you only that the services component of a “cloud experience” is not limited to a “cloud service”!

Then a cloud experience development “simply” becomes a cohesive whole of the development of each of the (same kind of) components (as Kindel’s) over time. This I am emphasizing here for the very simple reason that—unlike the previous application, web and mobile developments—it should be a continuous, ongoing effort in a significantly expanded sense! Otherwise it would end up nowhere like the once successful SurfCube effort on the Windows Phone 7 “sank” into oblivion with revenue of something like US$10+K for the whole lifetime (as acknowledged by its creator, András Velvárt recently).