Home
Starting Up
Case Studies DB
Products
Ideas DB
Subscribe to IH+
Starting Up
Case Studies
Ideas DB
Products DB
Sign in
Join
4
Likes
7
Comments
Invisible software is about to kill your favorite business app
By
Jakob Marovt
June 7, 2018
Invisible software is about to kill your favorite business app
This was a nice thought provoking piece.
Jakob did you coin the phrase “invisible software”?
Thanks!
Well don't know about coining it. I think the phrase has been around for awhile, just haven't seen it explained this way yet (and with the particular business/Slack spin).
I really like it. I work in conversational marketing & chatbots and I'm always on the lookout for phrases that convey the new conversational interfaces while downplaying "bots".
A lot of non-technical business leaders when they hear bots or chatbots think of HAL or Jarvis type software experiences.
The term "invisible software" isn't perfect but does describe well the fact that there's no app to download, no account to create, you're just in Slack or Facebook Messenger or Live-Chat and there are "micro apps" you can interact with.
Yeah, I really try to avoid the term "bots". It's been misused and people have weird connotations around it. Thanks for your thoughts Harry!
The economic incentives have to be there for there to be massive revolution in software delivery. For software that is built exclusively to be delivered in Slack we have yet to see a company to build a large business from that. There's some small players who have found sustainability, but we haven't see a true break out. I think Slack would need to implement some more Apple App Store tactics to incentivize innovation with economic outcomes (paid premium apps, in-Slack app purchases, etc). If Slack can sustain their growth and make discovery/payment easier, then invisible software has a chance to collapse a huge chunk of the user engagement into the Slack platform.
Yes, I completely agree and hope that Slack moves even faster in this direction.
This comment was deleted a year ago
Yup, voice is a big part of this for me as well, especially in the consumer space.
It's not just one technology - it's cloud, API integrations and big development platforms (like Slack, Amazon Alexa, etc.) all bringing this future forward, faster. It's going to be super exciting!
This comment was deleted a year ago