Picjuice.com - Another one?

Alright, I understand that coming up with a unique idea these days is tough. I accept that there's plenty of reason to offer people choices for everything they do. However, when it comes to picjuice.com, I have to wonder about the motivation.

Still, I gave it a try. It works well, it does exactly what it says it will do. It is quick, and works well. It has a clean and simple interface that looks good and is quite functional.



The main problem I have with this is that the internet has already seen its share of image editing applications. I'm not saying that this is a bad endeavor, but I have to wonder how someone with this kind of app writing capability could look at the plethora of web apps out there and think, "You know, the internet needs another image editing app! I know there are many out there, and this will be one more!"

I've said before that I'm a big fan of web applications. I love the concept of not having to install software, and I certainly appreciate the fact that you don't need to register to use this. At the same time, I can't imagine how anyone could do this and feel their bringing something new to the table.

I'm also getting tired of the constant use of the term 'beta'. I see the word beta so much now that I've completely forgotten what it is supposed to indicate. I know I'm not the only one suffering from this. I've been using Gmail for years now, and it's still considered beta. All a beta label is used for now is something for the developers to hide behind when something goes wrong. When I see beta on a such a basic application as this, and I think about the fact that the cute little Web 2.0 star logo will likely be there as long as this site exists, I'm forced to just shake my head and laugh to myself.


Perhaps I'm wrong about this, maybe this is just one of those exercises in "because I could" mentality. It runs on the Google App Engine, and without having any information on the page, we could just assume that this beta is simply a test of what the app engine can do. Still, I can't really think of a reason to use this instead of the tons of other options one has.

Of course, if you've ever trolled around sourceforge.net, you've likely seen the plethora of similar projects you can get for free there as well. It's not a new thing to release software that does the same thing as other software, and I suppose that as it becomes easier and easier to create robust web apps, we'll just keep seeing more of the same.

Of course, it's not like I have the only blog on the block, either.