After 20-plus years, we're almost there. The new World Wide Web is finally poised to deliver all the benefits and simplicity that we've waited for since the 1980s, according to Linda Castellini.
The (World Wide) Web is the master of self-invention. There's always, it seems, something new just around the corner that will revolutionize the ways in which we work, play and communicate. But these new Web worlds don't appear overnight, in the form of new products or services they evolve. That's why, sometimes, the 'next big Web thing' seems like so much hype. But look back a year or two and you really see the massive changes that have taken place; just try and imagine an (easy) business life without widely available broadband, Plug and Play 1GB pen drives or unlimited email storage systems.
The new Web is already here, but it will take most of us a while to really notice, and benefit from, its potential. The new Web is about getting Web users to do really clever stuff for themselves, without the need for costly applications or a head for code and programming. The new Web embraces the entire Internet sphere. It's not centered on a minority of expensive corporate Web sites; it's about connecting and enabling every small site or online user to communicate easily and quickly. It's what all the fuss was about in the first place.
The buzzword recently employed to try to encapsulate this new Web is, or was, 'Web 2.0', but before most of us knew what that actually was, we'd already moved on. Driven by fast, always-on broadband, the wide availability of open-source software and a seemingly endless supply of inventive and tireless open source programmers, the Web is becoming a very powerful and useful tool. This latent power is consolidated by the range of inexpensive PCs, memory and servers on the market that seem to grow with power each passing day.
We used to speak of digital convergence. What we really mean is PCs acting as phones and TVs, and Web-friendly mobile devices posing as gaming devices, email terminals, mini videos, cameras and music centers. We mean all digital devices seamlessly connecting and talking to each other. Well, it's here. Email won't go away, but it will be supplanted by web-based instant picture and voice messaging. Instant messaging may be popular today, but anyone these days (at least in countries that have licensed VoIP) can have an impromptu Web conference without even owning a PC. Witness a recent scene in a Mumbai cybercaf where I endured two hours of the guy next to me drooling over his Filipina girlfriend's outfit as he glued his eyeballs to a Webcam image of his love originating from a distant Manila cybercafe.
Business ready
Of course, this do it yourself scenario won't do for business. A reliable setup that's been tested for compatibility is crucial for successful business communication, but there is now an enticing array of potentially useful business tools out there on the Web just waiting to be harnessed.
Many of us are already using the new Web. Ever read a blog, visited the photo-sharing site Flickr or looked up a reference on Wikipedia? These free services are the beginning of the new Web. There's endless potential for creative entrepreneurs to capitalize on this new set of possibilities, and it's not only the big boys who stand to benefit although you can bet that they're exploiting these opportunities with a vengeance. Google has branched out into talk and chat and is using new Web technologies to fund its must-have free offerings ever wondered how the ads on Gmail are targeted to the content of the message you're reading?
But there's plenty of room for newcomers like video-sharing site YouTube, blog search engine Technorati, online spreadsheets from JotSpot and blogging tools from Six Apart (more on these later). Established players are watching newcomers closely, and Yahoo especially is off to a flying new-Web start with its takeover of pioneers del.icio.us (an online 'social manager') and Flickr. It is also developing a 'communal' search facility that ranks results based on shared bookmarks and tags.
Platforms, not applications
The new Web is about platforms rather than applications. Microsoft has repeatedly played the platform card successfully, smothering Lotus 1 2 3 with Excel, WordPerfect with Word, and Netscape Navigator with Internet Explorer. But this time the battle isn't between a platform and an application, but between two platforms, each with a radically different business model.
On one side there are proprietary commercial software providers that own our familiar operating systems and applications; on the other are open-source systems with no owners, working together with an agreed set of protocols and standards. Increasingly, the former are being forced to get to grips with the latter by accommodating Web-based data sharing and processing. Communications-oriented systems such as the new Web, an 'Internet-as-platform' approach, demand consistent interoperability. Users stuck with outdated proprietary software packages could find themselves 'locked in' to a single option.
New forms of collaboration
There's much evidence that business is embracing the Web. By 2007, advertising spend on the Internet will account for a 4.4% share of the market, according to the latest predictions from ZenithOptimedia. Coca-Cola, GlaxoSmithKline and L'Oreal have all called global digital pitches in the past six months. As Guy Lambert, the managing director of OgilvyOne London, says: "Clients are starting to ask how digital should relate to the rest of their global marketing mix." And where marketing leads, the business world often follows. As the Web matures and becomes an accepted part of corporate life, many successful, go-ahead businesses are attracted to the new collaborative working models that first blossomed in decidedly non-business settings. From open-source software to so-called wikis, RSS and blogs, business entrepreneurs have plenty of tools to speed up innovation. These technologies link and work together to provide easily accessible ways of Web-based communication and working. So what are these new wonder technologies, and what can they offer?
Blogging
Weblogs, also known blogs, are fast becoming important business tools with real power and influence 2006 is the year that blogs gained real acceptance within the business community. According to blog search-engine and measurement firm Technorati, 23,000 new Weblogs are created every day. Writing off blogs as geek-speak is a grave underestimation of its potency as a tool for effective communication. In simple terms, a blog is a simple Web site that offers a space for publishing news on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top of the list of entries, and visitors can comment on your news item, link to it or email you. A blog consists of posts (short pieces of commentary) that are arranged according to the date and time they were published. Microsoft now has 1,200 "official" corporate bloggers who have become a major marketing asset through the word of mouth news and information they generate. By writing transparently about the company, its strengths and weaknesses, they have given it a human face. Blog marketing, or viral marketing, has helped many mainstream products (notably KFC) gain market share without the need for an expensive offline campaign.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Another technology that has made a real difference is RSS, a technology that allows a user to link not just to a Web page, but to subscribe to it and receive a notification every time that page changes. Dynamic Web sites (database-backed sites with dynamically generated content) have been with us for many years, but the real breakthrough here is that the links are also dynamic. A link may direct a user to a page that changes daily, but so-called "permalinks" are accessible even after the entry has passed from the front page and into the site archives. The permanent URLs created ease the process of linking to a particular entry, and an RSS feed is thus a much stronger link than a link to a single page. Using permalinks, it's relatively easy to access a specific post on someone else's site and refer directly to it.
RSS was initially used to offer such notification of blog entries, but now it offers data updates from stock quotes to news. It may seem oh so obvious now that we all use it, but it was RSS that turned Weblogs from an ease of publishing phenomenon into a way of linking up all kinds of Web communities.
Wikis
A wiki, as defined by Wikipedia itself (an online encyclopedia based on the notion that an entry can be added by any Web user one giant wiki in operation), is a Web site that allows users to add, remove, or otherwise edit and change all content quickly and easily. A wiki is the simplest online database that could possibly work, combined with a simple content management system. Wikipedia is already listed in the top 100 Web sites and a recent academic survey found that its science content published on its pages is at least as accurate as that in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and usually much more up to date. Many businesses are using wikis to facilitate online meetings and discussion, bypassing asynchronous services like email. Sites like del.icio.us and Flickr, and urban design site www.rudi.net, have pioneered the system of tagging, a collaborative categorization of information using freely chosen keywords known as tags. This facilitates an intuitive way of searching for information by popular user search terms such as "freaky" or "cute."
In the same way, collaborative anti-spam products like Cloudmark's community-based filtering (which works by aggregating collective spam reports) do a great job of blocking spam without discarding valid email.
The new Web is offering us more for less. Sites such as Jotspot Live (which allows colleagues or clients to create notes together on the same Web page at the same time) and Jotspot tracker (which publishes spreadsheets online as interactive Web sites in 30 seconds) offer Web-based services that you can access for free or for micropayments kind of like the application service provider (ASP) model but without a contract. And then there's the phone. VoIP services are letting the world talk for less if not for free. And while Skype and its ilk may be invaluable for cash-strapped budget travelers all over the world, services like Jordan's olivoice are the ones that will give global businesses a new lease of communications life.
Power to the people: DIY media
The other face of the new Web is social. Mainstream TV programs are now offered for download in the U.S. for 99 cents by AOL Online and others, and as broadband penetration increases, other online media companies are set to follow suit. But the greatest thing about the new Web is the way it has empowered us, mainstream media's one-time captive audience. These days, folks everywhere are doing it for themselves.
U.S. citizen Ravi Jain is shooting a weekly "reality" video blog from the driver's seat of his car during his daily commutes to work (five hours of "studio time," as he puts it). He also has passenger "guests" on camera, or maybe chats with his wife. After broadcasting online for a few months, he's getting interest from cable companies.
© Jordan Business 2006
