I have to say that I’ve made a lot of progress with Anime Bite. I must say, it is looking very cool! While I won’t comment on the design, features, or expected release date, I will say that it looks and feels nothing like a web site. However, because of this it will be much more intuitive than a typical web site. This is called a “web application”.
This is a perfect opportunity to explain the terminology of “web development” versus “web design”. The web designer has been around since the dawn of the web. They make pages look nice and fresh, but fundamentally they function the same: you look around the page and click a link to go to the next one. On the other hand, the web developer focuses more on functionality and make the website feel more like an application. These people add advanced functionality both behind the scenes and up front. They haven’t been around for more than a few years and are only now starting to come to the front of the web scene.
Still confused? There are good specific examples out there. For example, Facebook is a web application whereas Engadget is a website (though it is displaying content created in a web application – in this case, a CMS). Also, it isn’t as simple as that. Google Maps is a web applet (a small application) in a website.
Long story short, the web developer does added functionality but the web designer only makes it look “pretty” (not saying there is anything wrong with that though). I am proud to say that I’ve been a web developer since day one of my web design work, and Anime Bite will clearly reflect that.
The web designer is dead, long live the web developer!
