80-20 Gives You Wings

I recently discovered the very useful Aviary.com. This website offers a basic suite of free and low-priced image editing tools. The tools offer a web-based way to touch-up pictures and create other basic modifications to images. It is very simple to learn and to effectively use.

This site represents a prime example of the 80-20 rule in action - that 80% of the user requirements can be fulfilled through only 20% of standard features. Because it's cheap to develop and maintain only 20% of standard editing features, Aviary can charge very little to no fees - especially compared to software such as Adobe Photoshop.

The Internet allows for companies to take advantage of the 80-20 rule both for development and distribution - a combination that wasn't possible in the past. This should make traditional software development companies such as Adobe and Microsoft very fearful.