Web Services & SaaS…..truly ubiquitous technologies

While driving between meetings today, it struck me how ubiquitous Software Services and SaaS “apps” have become. It is pretty astounding. When HP first started discussing “Web Services” around 1999, I was interested in the concept, but didn’t fully grasp the implications and power back then. So, it is amazing to see how quickly web services and web apps have the norm rather than the exception.

To put things into perspective, on this blog alone, there are over 10 different web services running, including:

• Google Analytics [analytics]
• Add This [social media recommendations
• Akismet [anti comment spam]
• Tynt [content copying & sharing]
• Click Track [visitor behaviour analysis & heatmaps]
• GetSatisfaction [community support & ideas]
• Feedburner [content syndication]

On top of these services, the WordPress CMS underpinning this site and its plugins (which is hosted in the cloud) are “self-aware” and check to see if new versions exist and if they need to be updated.

We have truly come a long way quickly!