Web 2.0 is about the Internet-as-a-platform. The operating system as the focal point of our knowledge and information life is over. The next phase of the Internet will be dominated by those who understand that enabling people is the key. Not just providing packaged solutions, content, advertising and other stuff tossed in our faces hoping that it’s what we will buy…but giving us tools to assemble, create and deliver content and chunks of application functionality that we choose and consume. No one does tools better than Apple which makes me predict that Apple will own mass market application creation and delivery.
Let’s look at a few obvious facts (with some opinion interlaced) so you can follow my logic:
1) NeXT, Steve Jobs’ company bought by Apple which is the foundation of today’s Mac OS X operating system, delivered WebObjects in 1996, the first object oriented Web application server enabling rapid Web application development. Patents like this one — done with WebObjects clearly in mind — points the way to what I’m starting to sense is how Apple could very well “own” the mass market Web application space.
2) Building on the unix foundation from NeXT and delivered as the operating system we know today as Mac OS X, at MacWorld in January of 2006, Apple delivers the next iteration of their iLife suite of products that delivers a completely integrated series of applications for video (iMovie), photos (iPhoto), audio (GarageBand), DVD creation (iDVD‚ and adds Web publishing (iWeb). Critics laud the seamless and elegant integration of these applications and they’re an amazingly powerful catalyst for those deeply involved in the participation culture
3) March 22, 2006: Google releases Google Pages, an amazingly simple (and I think embarrassingly so) Web page creator. They also buy Writely, release Google Calendar, and host of other services like Google Reader, Patents, etc. Hmmm….could Pages be the way Google will enable people to assemble numerous pieces of functionality together to create their own Web applications? Yeah…but only if people want their stuff to look like my Grandpa built it in 1997.
4) August 29, 2006: Dr. Eric Schmidt joins Apple’s Board of Directors. He’s a smart guy and Google’s hot, but if you think at all deeply about the implications of this you’ll understand that Google is the only company in a position to be the engine of the internet-as-a-platform and Schmidt recognizes that the DNA of Google means they design like my Grandpa who, by the way, never used a computer. Schmidt must understand that the totality of what Apple offers, their design sense and their ability to execute is the perfect front-end to the back-end Google delivers so well.
5) Real Simple Syndication (RSS) accelerates in 2006 as the preferred content syndication method and virtually any updating content is rendered “RSS-able”. It’s still tough to cobble together a bunch of RSS feeds and republish them in any meaningful way, but just about all content is fed by RSS and can be consumed easily. Just high end tools that can incorporate RSS feeds within an overall framework are missing
6) All during 2006, Web services proliferate within the Web 2.0, Internet-as-a-platform paradigm and much of the functionality is delivered as “gadgets” or “widgets” or code snippets. These small chunks of functionality enable people to cut code and paste it into their own blog, social site area or Web site. Thousands of these Web gadgets and widgets exist (see Widgetbox, Google Gadgets) but each has their own respective look-n-feel (pretty cheesy too) and it’s NOT simple to build a Web page or a Web application incorporating these and have it look good. NOTE: if you want to get some sense of how these Web services can be mashed together (i.e., mashups), then take a peek at ProgrammableWeb’s directory of mashups here.
So how will Apple own mass market Web application creation and delivery?
Steve’s Social Stuff