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It is often said that Microsoft owns the desktop with regard to their operating system and desktop productivity tools. And there does not appear to be any serious threat to this dominance. Open Office version 2.0 has been released and attained a level of maturity, but is it too late. The web 2.0 discussions point to the web as the new platform for software applications, and Google clearly appears to be emerging as the dominant player.

Will they own the web? I think they are moving in that direction. It will be interesting to watch how the public responds to their growing dominance that clearly is based on access to your information, commericalizing your content, beta level products, and leading innovation in the areas of AJAX and internet based integration.

As noted in a prior post, the real test will occur once web 2.0 based apps appear on the market that compete directly with Microsoft Office. I read somewhere that Google had this in their plans, and I believe this will have an enormous impact.

There is a vibrant market of startup web 2.0 companies that are developing a range of applications that enhance searching, tagging, bookmarking, and range of other specific functionalities such as event management, time management, todo list etc. While it appears the small startup market is vibrant, Google is in a completely different universe, and the release of Google Base for example has a market impact that reflects the size of Google and their growing impact on the web 2.0 world.

The concept of the network computer was promoted as next generation computing back in the web 1.0 days. The idea was that applications would move to the web or network, and that all that was needed was a light footprint on the desktop that simply had good capability to run a browser. This approach to computing did not work as the applications on the web did not come close to the level of user interaction that was still possible with desktop based software applications.

Does web 2.0 change this. One of the technological components of web 2.0 is AJAX which is a group of technologies that can significantly improve user interaction, and avoid the slow refreshes or postbacks that were previously required with web applications. Google maps is the classic example. No one wishes to use the clunky slow mapquest now that google maps is available with the ability to move around a map without apparent pauses to update the local data.

As AJAX matures and becomes more widespread, it will be interesting to see if the concept of the network computer re-emerges. I think it might, but not until the core applications that people use become AJAX enabled. In terms of the business market, this really means word processing, spreadsheets and slide presenation software.

Its too bad that Open Office has just matured to version 2.0 where it may establish a foundation as a competitor to Microsoft Office, or at least a concern to Microsoft. But if the shift has been to web/network based applications, Open Office may have missed the mark. It could be applications like Num Sum , a web based spreadsheet application emerge as the new type of web 2.0 application. Granted this application is somewhat primitive at this stage. If AJAX can be utilized to the extent that a wider range of functionality is provided, it will be interesting to see where this and other web 2.0 based desktop applications are positioned in relation to the conventional desktop apps.

Its great to follow the bloggers in the social media space. From Danah Boyd to Ross Mayfield, there appears to be a well defined group that have strong interactions within a blogging community. It may even becoming at risk of a developing into self-referential group, but recent posts indicate that with the buzz around "web 2.0", that the conversation is changing.

And my understanding of the discussion is that if a group is defined around a special interest, what happens when the special interest changes? What happens when the general topic changes, and what happens when investment appears to further develop this area of social media?

Inevitably when there is growing activity around any area of interest, say blogging, investment funds come a calling with the intent of somehow leveraging this interest and activity for some monetary return. This will certainly change the nature of this community, and I would think there may be a couple ways that the market will be impacted.

First of all, the concept of ground up collectively organizing functionality on the web sounds like fun, but how is this of interest to investment. I guess one route is to simply create activity and then roll it into a large consumer platform such as yahoo, google or msn. An early stage opportunity clearly exists in the area on consulting and companies like guidewire and headshift appear to be emerging strong in this area. Lastly there is the idea of a "product" that has a specific transaction or service that people are willing to pay for. This seems almost antithetical to the concept of web 2.0, but sure to see some offerings in this area.

One development I would expect to see emerge would be the introduction of real or virtual activities independant of the content. Right now there appears to be a bias towards content in searching it, tagging it, sharing it, developing community around it, but I think there needs to be more defined activities. More the social media blogging community this appears to take the form of conferences such as the web 2.0 conference, the blogon conference, or the upcoming conference on social architecture.

These opportunities though are limited to a small group of specialists, and I think the "activities" around social media must emerge in a more populist form than focussed conferences for industry experts. Looking forward to see how this market develops.

Interesting comment by Ross Mayfield of Socialtext who noted how much of our activities on the web these days are less about nouns or specific places, but more about actions or verbs. We google, flickr, blog, podcast, tag, subscribe, feed rather than go to specific sites.

This in itself may be sufficient definition of social software where the individual is more engaged in the interaction than a participant in a transaction. The Internet has provided the basis of connectivity and shift now is to individual social activity on the web. There are many components to this. Firstly content and content creation tools for text, audio and video. Secondly the ability to share this information through a meaningful way based on user identification, reputation or self defined categorization such as tagging. And finally integration and collaboration where the content and its definition can be exchanged and co-created to form a new type of content.

The tool metaphor persists and while we have moved from the stone carvings to scripts to the printing press, to radio and television, the new tools not only act independantly but in concert with an array of other tools that are organized or orchestrated by the individual.

Web 2.0 is simply an articulation of this new platform and it is becomming the new "magic" where productivity, efficiency and automation have been the prior "magic" of the computer revolution.

I guess I should be reading 400 blogs a days as it appears the term "web 2.0" has become somewhat blasse, and I've just started to explore this idea. The idea that the internet is the platform, and distributed applications can be assembled to create "collective intelligence" is compelling, but may simply be a good sales or marketing-speak.

Like many emerging patterns, you are often "doing it" before it is actually given a label, and horrors, once its been given a marketing name and pitch, its allure may then be reduced to simple commercial activity. Is the real convergence, not in terms of technologies, but in terms of time, where the inspiration, idea, pitch, investment and sale can be compressed into a nanosecond and it is difficult to discern amongst these different phases. Maybe.

But back to "doing it". As I understand the web 2.0 idea includes the concept of the internet as the operating system with distributed application assembled by individuals or organizations to create their own resulting functionality. In building a "product", we can now envision integration out and integration in, where our functionality is simply a node on a network, and there is inherint intelligence in the network itself.

The "network" concept is relevant in this discussion and overall very important in how it relates to busness, social relations, technology infrastructure. In all of these areas, the network concept can be applied to articulate how information, knowledge and experience flow throughout these networks.

Not sure if we are in a Post Industrial society or a Post Modern society, some other type "post", or simply moved onto a new era with enough definition that it can lose the suffix. But, it does appear clear that we are in de-mass or de-massifying society where the conventions of big media, vertical integration of business activities, and hiearchal social and organizational structures have been impacted by the rise in power of the individual in most western societies. And a large portion of this can be attributed to advancement in individual-based technologies such as the personal computer. And the "network society" appears to be emerging and strengthing as a new model or organization.

This gets us back to web 2.0 which is clearly based on the "network" model where in this case it is the internet that we are referring to.

The challenge now is to determine if we can "do it" more completely with the available tools and technologies. Will this be the domain only of the largest companies who can expend the resources to build this type of technology, and in effect create a significant barrier to entry. Or will the tools simply prove inadequate to address the integration complexities associated with tieing together more sophisticated applications.

I listened to a podcast yesterday by ITC (i think this stands for IT Conversations) that interviewed Brian Dear of EVDB. It was an interesting listen and based on the somewhat specialized content, very interesting to receive it in the podcast format.

In the past I would have associated this type of specialized knowledge to be shared at a conference by speaker or panel. This makes me wonder if the era of the conference will be affected. Certainly there is the strong desire to meet face to face, enjoy some drinks and generally hang with your collegues, but what if the content can be delivered more easily. This may shrink conferences to simply those that wish to "hang" and for those who simply want the content, well they can download the podcast.

Beyond the fact that it was an interesting delivery, the content also was impressive. Brian articulated his companies strategy of having a product and a platform where the platform introduces a variety of new ways to "consume" their functionality. This can be in the form of APIs, Web Services, ... and allows clients and partners to push and pull content through their systems.