When shopping for web applications, what kind of cupholders do you look for?
The Web 2.0 cupholder currently causing conversation and controversy is offline access. The idea of offline web applications is getting an undue amount of attention, as David of 37signals put it. He put the same point in stronger words as well, and there are now over 200 comments after his post.
I have a couple of personal cupholder quirks. One is that I want to be able to print out my online calendar in a format that folds down to pocket size. So, right now, the only calendar I’ll drive is Scrybe. A cupholder like this would be easy for other calendar services to add, perhaps via alliance with PocketMod.
When it comes to documents, I want an adjustable cupholder for my paragraphs. I want a new paragraph to start when I hit Enter, and I want to be able to specify what that means in terms of formatting (indent the first line of a para, leave a blank line before it, etc.). If Google Docs gave me this, I’d use it a lot more frequently.
I’ve been asking for this since 2005, when the service was neither owned by nor named after Google, so it’s just as well I haven’t been holding my breath for it. I guess Writely/Google regard it as a cupholder that most drivers can do without.
To live up to the 2.0 in the title, I’ll close by:
- expressing the hope that you’ll join the cupholder conversation, either in comments here or on your own blog.
- quoting Wikipedia: Many people, particularly in the United States, consider the design, location and number of cup holders in a vehicle to be one of the most important attributes influencing their vehicle purchase.
- Thanking the person (mikek) whose photo I used.
Is that wine in riedel glasses in those cup holders?