Last week, I had the pleasure of attending The Future of Web Apps in London. This was my second FOWA in London since 2008 and I was very pleased to find out that we wouldn’t have to make a long trek out into the Docklands this year 
This is also my 5th ‘Future of’ event – having attended Future of Web Design in NYC, The now defunct Future of Mobile and finally The Future of Web Apps in Edinburgh which are all part of the same Carsonified events umbrella hosted by one of the most cordial hosts in the tech scene – Ryan Carson.
One word describes a Carsonified event to me: ‘Funky’ which is no wonder they were the event organizers behind this years’ Twitter Conference aptly named ‘Chirp’. Carsonified makes the tech business feel cool – which is inspiring to all involved and promotes an environment for people to share their ideas whilst having a great time.
This year’s FOWA had a very different theme to the previous events I have attended. That being, vendors of some pretty cool online Applications encouraging Entrepreneurs and Developers alike to charge for their services. This theme was further punctuated by a session called: How To Get People to Pay For What’s Already Free – Delivered by White Bear Yard‘s Eileen Burbridge & Linus Olsson of Flattr (Which is a system for paying people who’s website content you like)
As well as the inspired story behind one of FOWA’s Sponsors Squarespace – a website building tool to help developers accelerate the Web Design and Development process. Their story was quite simple. They charged people for their services – no Freemium Model. They just kept their payment plan simple by charging on a Monthly or Yearly basis and continued to do so for 7 years, growing their company organically. Until recently, when they decided to take Venture Capital investment from Index Ventures and Accel Partners.
Free services on the web are not sustainable. Servers are expensive, Developers are expensive and Designers are becoming more necessary as the public’s expectations rise to expect well formatted content. This trend is sure to take shape in our ever growing online marketplace.
Thank you FOWA for having us along! This was definitely an event I soon won’t forget.
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