Forget RIA – I Want My RIE!

Giora Morein — Fri, 11 May 2007 03:01:04 +0000

There is no doubt that in the past year or so there has been a huge surge in the area of internet technologies that is today commonly known as RIA – Rich Internet Applications. There are a few other techno buzz words I can throw in here that may or may not make it clearer to what the industry is referring to: such as AJAX, Flex or Lazlo and there are a host of others. Even more commonly we hear the now famous “Web 2.0″ moniker used to describe anything from blogs and vlogs to the “pageless experience”. There are a number of debates as to why these ideas and technologies are gaining such profound popularity today. None of these concepts have only just appeared – there was no meteor that struck the internet one day and oozed out shared videos and super-interactive user interfaces. Any experienced developer will tell you that they’ve been using JavaScript to enable asynchronous communication from the browser to the server for years– Aha! AJAX. Flash and ActionScript has been around for years too – even Flex is on its second major release.

Some experts will say the reason for the recent surge in interest in these technologies is because of maturity in the technology. A number of tools are now available to developers to assist in the development of Ajax solutions. Flex released it’s second version – one far more robust and scalable then it’s predecessor. They have also made the technology free to use which has certainly helped its adoption. Other industry experts believe that the latest wave of RIA development is because of the “thickening of the pipe” — more bandwidth. Still others attribute this surge to the recent enterprise Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) implementation trend — that technologies like Flex that integrate so seamlessly with web services help realize the much touted return on the SOA investment.

My view is different. I agree with experts. It’s true the technology is more mature and easier to use. It is easier to integrate into existing architectures and certainly increased bandwidth hasn’t hurt. However I don’t think these reasons alone can truly explain the scale and scope in which the internet is evolving. I believe that primary driver of Rich Internet Applications and Web 2.0 is the user. Users have matured. They have become more sophisticated and more demanding. They want more. More interactivity, more fluidity, more relevancy. They want it now. Today’s users want instant feedback and zero latency. They want to connect and contribute. They want to be heard and not be ignored. Users are no longer content to leverage the internet as a single-dimensional tool similar to how prehistoric man used flint and rocks. Today’s user wants to be integrated and engaged. It is not the technology that is driving RIA adoption — it is the user experience that has been pushing and driving the technology. The key to success does not lie with the technology but rather with the ability to deliver what the user finds valuable and important. Understanding the user and integrating her into the development process is imperative to success. As such, when we build software, our focus should not be to build Rich Internet Applications — but rather to build Rich Internet Experiences.

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Forget RIA – I Want My RIE!