The 30 Most Influential Interactive Products: 20-11
See Part I for 30-21.
20. Flickr
Few sites, and especially ones for a seemingly mundane task such as sharing photos, have been as studied and imitated as Flickr. Flickr made the most of methods such as Ajax, but did it in a way that never got in the way of the photos. We also have Flickr to thank for the dropping of E at the end of words and the almost ever-present “Beta” tags on web applications.
19. Lotus 1-2-3
IBM’s first killer app inspired many imitators and its influence can be found in every spreadsheet application since. Lotus 1-2-3 also help popularize contextual help.
18. Friendster
Friendster has become a bit of a punchline now, but Friendster showed (briefly) the value of a social network almost purely as a social network. MySpace, Orcut, Facebook, etc. all owe a debt to Friendster.
17. iPhone
Touchscreens have been available for almost 40 years now, and in phones for over a decade. But it is the iPhone that every major device manufacturer has been chasing for two years now, and it, along with the Wii (#23) is re-defining for the general public how we can interact with our digital devices.
16. Lotus Notes
Not all influences are good ones. Lotus Notes has been the definitive example of bloated, unwieldy, and overly-complicated UIs with poor feedback mechanisms for nearly 20 years now, and yet so much of the enterprise software (and now even some web applications) tries to replicate its everything-at-once-done-poorly mantra.
15. Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 brought a computer that didn’t sit on a desk into homes–frequently even before there was a computer on a desk in the home. It also introduced to many the input devices of a joystick and trackball, and every gaming system from Xbox to Playstation to the Wii is a direct descendent.
14. The WELL
The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link was perhaps the first popular social network on the dial-up, pre-web. The founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation met there, and Craigslist’s first mailing were here as well. The WELL’s influence can be seen all over the web wherever there are threaded discussions, and, arguably, blogging.
13. ICQ
ICQ was the first popular, cross-platform instant messaging platform. Everything from Twitter (#27) to AIM to Skype bears its stamp.
12. iPod and iTunes
I’m cheating a little, combining these, but it is really the combination of iPod/iTunes that is the most influential (although there were certainly years of companies trying to replicate the scroll wheel on devices). The iTunes “playlist” concept has spread far from just music, while the cross-platform, small device/desktop (or web) manager/store is a model that designers and businesses both are keen to replicate.
11. Sketchpad
Ivan Sutherland’s 1963 Sketchpad is the grandfather of every CAD and graphics program that followed. It was the first program ever to have a GUI, and the first to use a lightpen. Sketchpad also started the idea of “masters” which are found now in everything from Photoshop to OmniGraffle.
Coming soon: The top 10 most influential interactive products!
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2 Comments
Dan, I think you got ICQ wrong historically.
I think that AIM actually pre-dates ICQ. Definitely within the AOL only universe (but still cross-platform) and if ICQ was the 1st outside a closed network to do IM, it was really AOL’s AIM that made IM what it is today. ICQ for most people was a blip.
I also think you are confusing “influential” with “iconic” sometimes. In the case of Flickr, I think they are iconic and successful, but it was Ofoto that set the stage for online photo sharing. yes, the addition of the social that Flickr added was important, but it was building off of 5 years of previous “sharing” tht ofoto (today KodakGallery) was doing.
I guess, I mean to say that it is hard to know in this list any more whether it is “most influential” or Dan’s favorite examples? And looking at the flickr example, there are still way more subscribers to KodakGallery than to Flickr and now Facebook is the defacto photo sharing champion today based on #’s of photos and #’s of people using the system.
Also The WELL as a the 1st social network? Really? B4 Compuserve? or Prodigy? Again, I’m not so sure. I think your definition of “social network” is also too broad here. If a social network is just an addressbook then I’m not so sure it is The WELL or that important. The WELL just happened to be the place where people in the Valley (mostly) congregated. The #’s are so small compared to other dialup services with similar activites that are contemporaries. AND if you want to look at revolutionary Usenet/UUNET is probably more important and influential than The WELL. It is the HACK Radio of Networks.
Influential doesn’t mean “most used.” I think you’re confusing popular with influential (although they are sometimes the same).
It’s possible I got the ICQ history wrong.