We all use web apps, we all complain about those web apps, and some brave souls go out and build a better web app. I’ve noticed the emergence of the “Y app is what X should have been” group, and I’m curious about how successful these new apps are.
For example, Jaiku is what Twitter should have been. It has more features, more stability, and it looks better! At least in the short term, though, it doesn’t have the density of people that Twitter has, and none of the migrations have drawn away enough of the community… or at least, those that were lured away were quickly replaced by new Twitterers.
Let’s look at Virb, which can be described as “what MySpace should have been”. It’s designed around music and other media, it’s fully customizable, and yet, somehow, none of the pages are nearly as hideous as the most benign MySpace page. It seems to have a much smaller spam problem (pure anecdote, here) and to respond much faster. And yet, aside from the person who told me about it, I haven’t met a single person who uses it.
I’m sure there are other examples of “What X Should Have Been” applications… how have they done?
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