Wild Ride

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My day job is director of marketing at Zude, a social computing company that has developed a drag-and-drop interface which makes it easy for beginners, intermediates and experts to build websites.  Just as the iPhone is much, much more than a phone, Zude allows users to build much, much more than websites — but for the purpose of context, let’s just say that’s our business.
 
What is exciting about Zude is that it will open up social computing (social networking grown up) to a whole new class of user. Similar to the video gaming industry which is reporting that its market is moving beyond hardcore users — thanks to the Wii and Nintendo DS — we at Zude feel teens and adults who have not been bitten by the MySpace and Facebook bug will jump on board when they see how easy it is to have their own online presence.
 
People still ask me about my Prius “How do you like it?” My smiley response is always “It’s a car and it gets 50 miles to the gallon. What’s not to like?” Now that everyone can build a website simply by typing and dragging and dropping objects, I once again ask “What’s not to like?”
 
Everyone will have their own website. You know it. I know it. It’s a matter of time.
 
And as the intermediates and experts also embrace this drag-and-drop technology and see how its impact will change the market, we will really be in for a wild ride. (Independent Facebook developers, are you listening?)