My friend Ben Bederson pointed me to the new BabyGap website.
They Ajaxed it, adding new features such as "QuickLook", and a more dynamic shopping cart.
These features were previously associated with websites built using Macromedia Flash. The Macromedia Flex technology was aimed precisely at companies wishing to build Rich Internet Applications for eCommerce, and Macromedia's Flex Store looks remarkably similar to the Gap store.
Presumably Gap weighed the options and decided that Ajax/DHTML was a better fit for their customers - despite the fact that Macromedia offers better media support and claims to be the leading cross-platform solution for RIAs.
According to a Forrester Research, the new Gap site leapfrog's the competition (see this NYTimes article). Gap's competitors will almost certainly respond by enhancing their sites, adding more dynamic in-page features.
I wonder how many of these competitors will put Macromedia in their shopping carts?
mano | October 2, 2005 06:14 PM
Hey Jon :)
Yes! I saw the gap sites, I believe they also did that for the Old Navy site - it shows how much can be done in the browser. It is amazing how many years it took for these old hooks to be used on broad-reach websites though.