US Wired debate: Web v App widely reported

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and Free and Editor in Chief of the US Wired magazine has provoked comment in both The Observer and The Sunday Times today about his argument that the "Apps have it, the Apps have it"..

In short he revisited an argument that went under the title: Walled Garden v Open back in the mid 1990s when the web broke. In their first digital box, BSkyB's settled for a Walled Garden approach through its "Barclay Square" but eventually, probably due to a much forgotten innovation from Dixons when they created Freeserve in 1998 (now part of Wanadoo), they succumbed as they developed their "Boxes". Indeed, Sky's broadband sales place it in the top 3 in the UK. 

Today, there are about 182 million web sites and 200,000 Apps. True, if you examine your own Apps they are more biographical but are they really any different from those web sites you have listed under "Favourites"? I doubt it. Apps will ultimately be driven by revenue and these stats have been hard to come by.