Over the last few months I have had the pleasure of meeting literally hundreds of people and talk to them about HammerKit. From trade shows to Dragons Den type pitching sessions, it seems that whenever I talk about web services I get blank stares. "Do you mean a web site?" I am asked...to which I reply "No!". For me, there are fundamental differences between a website and a web service and I think that many of us are living in a world of illusion - the illusion that it is easy to create really good, productive and effective web services. 

The truth is that only 66% of businesses in the EU have a web site, and roughly 15% of them have a web site that does anything other than say "We are here." This is precisely because it is too difficult, expensive and time-consuming for most businesses to create a web site that does stuff.

So what is a web service? Well, think about this as an example:

I run a hairdressing salon and I would like to attract customers to frequent my establishment. I can create a website in minutes with any of the site builders out there and it will have my address, email, phone number, etc. It will allow people to find me and contact me, but it is not working for me. I still have to take the booking, handle cancellations and deal with payments.

A web service goes further than a web site by actually doing some of your work for you - so my web service would include an appointment booking and confirmation system, a cancellation system and a payment system to let my customers pay in advance (perhaps for some small discount). My web service could go further and allow me to offer spare time slots at discount to registered customers via email or SMS to maximise my takings.  A web service will make me more efficient and allowing me to concentrate more on the customers in the salon.

In short a web site advertises you while a web service works for you.

In the past, it has been terribly expensive and time-consuming to create this type of service, but this is changing. Previously it would have meant a custom project, a lot of hassle and a lot of money - way out of the reach of the businesses that could benefit from it most.  Today, thanks to tools like HammerKit, a web service like this can be built once with the core functions in place and then duplicated with ease. This means that the price level of web services will fall dramatically, from tens of thousands of euros to perhaps a few thousand - well in the reach of most companies.

I would encourage you to think about how a web service could work for your business and tell me what you would like to have.

HammerKit lets us offer service design tools to a completely new group of web designers and talented amateurs, giving them the ability to create services that work for their clients. I hope that as we move forward we see more and more innovative services built using HammerKit and I am really excited to see what happens when your web services ideas meet HammerKit users that can deliver it for you.