Something Bigger is Coming

Tuesday Aug 29, 2006

Collaboration, Social Networking, Flickr, Wikipedia, are only the tip of the iceberg we're headed towards which will displace how we build and work with Internet technologies.   The idea that ofoto-becomes-flickr, BritannicaOnline-becomes-Wikipedia isn't deep enough to describe the changes in technologies, development methodologies, acquisition/sales strategies and the available services we will need to know to compete.  These ideas are more like the floating pieces of ice surrounding that big iceberg  - giving only a little hint of the changes to come.

Web 2.0 wasn't enough

The last few weeks I looked at the use cases which describe the intersection of 1.) content manipulation, 2.) internet services and 3.) organizational / personal behavior.  I did so with a presumption that Web 2.0 was both a description of new (or) refined technologies (e.g., AJAX, JSON, jMaki) and a list of innovative, interactive services (del.icio.us, Myspace, LinkedIn) which provide greater end user participation with web enabled services.  But I discovered that this assumption was only hinting at multiple needs which are yet unfilled - and to which technologies will soon be able to solve.  These are: greater end user capability, more flexibility of opensource for service providers/enterprise architects and wider / easier Internet device integration.

End User Enablers

The Internet was built to serve people, not the other way around - but nearly every Internet "service" allows a user to only accomplish a predetermined set of tasks.  Product Managers work hard to define these requirements, engineers work hard to design and deliver them, interface designers work hard to simplify the understanding and use of the service.    But ultimately they're only for a specific set of tasks for a specific target audience.  What about general use?  Flickr gained success versus oFoto because it added additional capabilities for an individual to share photos.   MySpace gained popularity because it allowed young adults an anonymous stage " to express themselves to the world",  a way to connect "to find their group without fear of personal rejection", a path to virtual popularity "without regard to time, location or real world popularity".   So while we assume Web 2.0 points out the innovation from Ofoto to Flicker and MyYahoo to MySpace as the capabilities of: 

1. End User Web Publishing (upload photos, set profile information, wiki pages)
   
2. Social Networking (find people, link to people, contact people connected to people you connect to)
   
3. Prebuilt Group services (file upload, wiki, discussions, blogs)
   

We can already see the next phases which will add: 

1. End User Service Creation
• Ability to create an entire service as an assembly of atomic services for a specific team of individuals....without development.
  
2. End User Service Publication
• Publish services which can be consumed by others.....without development.
  
3. End User Community Formation
• Ability for an individual, individuals in a role or a team to define their members.
  
4. End User Community Linking
• Ability for members to link communities together and thus allow social networking of teams, i.e., Workgroup Networking.
  
5. Embedded Organizational Behavior Processes
• Organizational Behavior is well advanced, but web services available today depend on external methods to enforce rules of behavior, which ultimately means lowered productivity and lack of management control.  Example: everyone knows at least one violator of email etiquette.  Imagine a system that facilitated certain patterns of behavior.
  
6. Unified Communications (think alerts, calendars, IM, blogs, email, wiki, doc repositories, voice mail)
• Communication means what message the receiver understands. Multiple paths of communication must be unified.
  
7. Anytime, anywhere, secure access
• The future is services and data available from anywhere.  Try Firefox for Solaris, Windows, iPod and Treo.
  
8. Embedded analysis
• Securely understand the dynamics of the system and its services
  
9. Smart Federated Search
• Google can't find that document in your Thunderbird email folder, nor realize it relates to an IM message that just arrived.....
  

Opensource

Web 2.0 also talks about standard technologies,  AJAX, DOJO,  jMaki, REST, JSON,  JSF Extensions, and Mashups, standards important to understand, but  Opensource communities and available packages will fundamentally change how we develop software and how we acquire software.  Many companies, even those that participate on standards groups, embed proprietary extensions which lock customers into their platforms. Opensource can solve this problem, allowing enterprise architects and service providers to gain the flexibility needed while ensuring best of breed capability. 

 Some organizations will take opensource modules and use them as is.  Others will take opensource modules and build additional functionality.  Some of these additional modules will be held as competitive differentiators while others will contribute these modules back to the community to be used, maintained and enhanced by others.  Companies who go beyond Web 2.0 will  need to understand how they will develop and use Opensource.  They must know what enhancements they wish to contribute back and which they will hold inside. This will change their development and acquisitions - and how companies will sell services and technologies.

Service vendors will additionally need to look at not only their capabilities but how they fit within the opensource strategy of their customers.  While service providers may sell a "service" instead of a "technology" they'll still need to be able to explain how this works within an opensource strategy.  Example, will their system provide WSRP portlets which work on an opensource portal?  will a technology vendor include opensource components which include licensing that protect their customers?

Internet Devices

The Internet is a collection of devices not just people.  Web 2.0 does speak of  "Software Above the Level of a Single Device", but there are some additional ideas important to understand.  Internet devices could be categorized as: Desktops (browser and applications), Handhelds (phones, ipods, Palms), Home Entertainment Systems (Tivo, Cable Boxes, Playstation), Embedded Devices (home security monitors, appliances, autos).  The iPod and iTunes are a great example of a new way to interact with the Internet besides a web application.  The market demand for seamless interaction across devices is very important.  Shouldn't I be able to add my home security system  to MyYahoo?  Can services offered today be easily extended to support data from remote devices?  to remote devices?

Something big is coming and we're only seeing the beginnings of this shift.  Web 2.0 describes a portion and MySpace and Flickr are good early examples.  But what's out there is even bigger.