MyCareerNetwork
MyCareerNetwork needed a partner to provide guidance on maintaining and expanding their software products for the HR industry.
Featured team member
Doug Compton
Born and raised in Louisville, Doug's interest in technology began with his first computer, an Apple IIe at age 11, writing computer games. After attending U of L Speed School, what began as a hobby turned into a career. Over the last 20 years primarily in the finance, government, and healthcare industries, he's developed applications in a variety of languages and platforms. With broad interests that range from snorkeling to science and WWII history to real estate, Doug uses his "down time" to research new technologies and test drive them within his home-grown web applications.
Full bio →Services we offer include…
- Custom software development
- Web applications
- Desktop applications
- Mobile applications
- Database applications
- Data warehouses
What’s The Difference Between Web Applications and Websites?
It’s all about purpose and intent
The best way to think about the difference between a web application and a website is to ask yourself what is it being used for; or what is it’s purpose. If the sole purpose is to market or advertise a service or product, then we call those websites. If the purpose is utility in nature, designed to solve a problem or make your job/life easier, then it’s probably an application.
I’ll give an example:
igNew.com is a website not a web application because it’s primary purpose is to inform/market to people on the web our software development and consulting services.
GMail on the otherhand is a web application because it’s primary purpose is to allow you to send and receive email. You could argue that GMail is marketing to users through their ads and links to other products, however, GMail itself is an application.
Applications also tend to be designed, compiled and built from scratch using a varity of software programming languages whereas websites these days are typically built on a content mangement system (CMS) like WordPress, Tumblr, Joomla, or sometimes from a combination of HTML, CSS and Javascript. I’ll add that there are some amazing website designers and developers who are build from scratch web experts and should not be classified as anything less. Don’t let the content management systems fool you, there is quite a bit of work that goes into building a website, but web applications tend to be longer and more complex in design, architecture and development.
The Exceptions
It does get tricky when you dig a bit deeper because the reality is that all content management systems like WordPress, Tumblr, Joomla are actually applications. They are web applications who’s primary function is to build websites, just like GMail’s primary function is to send and receive email.
It also gets confusing when you talk about social sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. Most all of these get categorized as websites or “sites” but the reality is that they are all very complex web applications who’s main purpose is to collect information from you and connect you with other people on their site.
What about iPhone, iPad and Android?
When it comes to mobile development for iPhone, iPad and Android devices we classify all of those as applciations because even though some companies want to build something that markets their products or services, you still have to build an application to display that content. Most mobile applications we see are solving problems or trying to make a process more efficient; whether it’s healthcare, education, engineering or consumer internet, most any business has an opportunity to engage their target customers through mobile applications.
Confused Yet?
Hopefully you’re not more confused now than you were when you landed here, but if you are, just leave a comment below or send us an email.