Clay Shirky: Situated Software. Shirky describes a growing class of software — software designed and built for small audiences to serve an immediate need. One prediction Shirky makes that I don’t think will turn out to be true is that such software will often have a limited lifespan. He points out that software big, complicated software designed for large audiences often fails to last a long time, so when creating situated software, designers should assume a short lifespan. In this, I disagree with him. If people depend on something to accomplish things, they’ll use it until something better comes along, and events occur that make it utterly obvious that the new thing is better. And when you create situated software, chances are you will create something that people depend on, because it’s designed just for them.