today more than ever, success on the web depends on the degree to which you + your visitors can interact with your web site. web software is the crucial under-the-hood technology that drives all dynamic + e-commerce web sites.

•		online shopping carts
•		online auctions
•		product + customer databases
•		electronic forms (such as a contact form or an electronic registration form)
•		web site search engines
•		web site statistics programs
•		web-based games ...and more!

web software is about interactivity. if you need to receive information from your site's visitors, you need web software that can accept + process that information. if you need your website to respond in a personalized manner to a customer's request, you need web software to give a personalized response. if you need to provide an online service, you need web software to provide that service. web software allows your site to handle information in real-time.

most web applications are not used by your visitors, but by you. imagine you own an online store that sells comic books. if you have thousands of comic books, chances are that you need help managing your stock.

a web application would store each item in a database, providing you an easy way to specify new comic books, delete old ones, and change pricing + information on others. part of the application would give your customers a view into the comic book database, and the rest of the application would be devoted to helping you manage the comic books.

in most cases, web software is either custom programmed by a professional developer, or is installed from a package by a professional system administrator (or a combination of both). web technology is still young; in most cases, you can't purchase it at your local software retail outlet.
 

the goods news is that customized software can do a much better job at streamlining your business procedures than off-the-shelf products. imagine if microsoft came to your door and invited your input on a totally new version of excel. would your excel look much like the one microsoft sells?

web applications are the movers + shakers of the online world. any time you are asked to enter information online, every time there is a submit button, there's also a web application to process that information and respond when you click that submit button. web applications DO something useful. when you need to provide your visitors with more than just pre-made web pages, web software is the solution.