October 6, 2005 | Filed under:

I read somewhere once that Bill Gates’ remarked that one day everyone would be a programmer. I thought I understood this idea when I, a theatre director, got sucked into Java-script because a) I had the need (to create a simple mouse-over effect) and b) it was quite simple to understand. Before I knew it I was writing complex web applications and coding seemed to be the new thing – build software instead of hardware… it was easy. Another humanoid assimilated.

Ning just raised the bar on that idea by creating a product which is just an API for generic services. This means anyone can use its functionality to build software applications for niche markets. I have not seen the API yet, but I understand that it is very simple to use and you don’t really need to be a ‘programmer’ to use it.  

This really is the ‘long tail of software’, where new web applications will emerge that are only intended for very small audiences.  Ning, potentially, makes this an economically reasonable idea.

Many of us have understood for a while that it is important to make software ‘remixable’ so that users can mould it to their needs – this takes that idea all the way.

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