In deciding to write this post I knew I'd be up against some stiff arguments.  After all, to fly in the face of innovation and progress and suggest that "Web 2.0" has flaws requires a thick skin.  However, I'd like to propose some ideas, if only for food-for-thought.

For all of its value and wonder, the web still is a very disconnected, ugly wasteland.  Web sites don't talk to each other well, though this is improving with innovations like RSS, Atom, and publicly releasable developer APIs.  The web is also still quite sluggish, with its request-response model of click a link, wait for the page and its content to be found and loaded, and continue. This concept also is improving, with technologies like AJAX (better Javascript), tried and true Flash animation, and new ideas like Silverlight from Microsoft.

Still, for most of the web, there is almost no drag-and-drop support, no advanced controls like treeviews, dials, sliders, no useful right-click and context-specific menus, no double-click concepts, and no usability heuristics that model the real world.

The best software occurs when the user-friendliness and "richness" of desktop apps meets the connectivity and distributed nature of the web.  Things like Google Earth (not to be confused with Google Maps) come to mind - a beautiful, powerful software application taking advantage of the great interface and processing capabilities of the computer on your desk, while connecting itself to a world of information.

The difference with great applications like Google Earth is that we aren't talking about web SITES.  We're talking about web SERVICES. And we're talking about desktop software programs that don't suffer from poor web interfaces.

Our software, RealAgent Accelerator, is a desktop application.  Our users benefit from being able to use software in a way that's not foreign to them - the controls are responsive immediately, and there is next to no waiting for "the page to load" or to "submit" something.

That is not to say however, that our software suffers because it is not a website.  RealAgent Accelerator connects to "back-end" web services that provide the same level of connectedness of any website.  Data can be shared with other users, or uploaded and viewed from a PDA. Anything that can be done from a web browser can be done from a desktop application.  However, not everything that can be done on a desktop can be done from the web - at least not yet.  Have you tried using an online image editor?  Terrible.

With websites, there's also an issue of privacy.  Are you really sure that your client's personal information is housed in a safe manner?  Are you really sure that your data, and that of your clients, are not sold to marketing companies?  How would your client feel knowing that their home address, its value, and their mortgage information were stored on a web server in Mumbai, India?  I'm can't speak to individual website privacy policies, but I'm not certain as to the legalities of whether your client submits to have his or her contact information posted on a website (secured or not) when he or she agrees to use your services.

Despite Web 2.0, the web still has a way to go.  I'm all for innovation, but desktop applications aren't going away any time soon.