The Next Wave of the Web

• Seminar Agenda
  
  
• The Incubator of Content
  
  
• What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
  
  
• Why is the Net Hot?
  
  
• Is Electronic Commerce Here Yet?
  
  
• Catch the Waves
  
  
• Wave #7: Think Locally, Act Locally
  
  
• Take My Advice,
  ... At Any Price
  

Seminar Agenda

• What does the Net represent?
• A brief walk down memory lane
• A look at the phenomenon
• What do consumers & businesses need?
• 9 Waves

The Soul of A New Medium

• Semaphore
• Telegraph
• Radio
• Television
• Internet
• None before was both conduit and content

The Incubator of Content

• WWW represents low friction rates
  • Reduced barriers to access
  • Reduced barriers to entry
• Distributed creativity without distribution
  • Passive processes
• Interactive content before ITV

The Inevitable Consequences of the Ubiquitous Microprocessor

• When everything is smart, everything talks to everything else
• Vast, pent-up demand for communications
• Artificial boundaries are built and then shattered
• Grass-roots technology adoption follows similar patterns

Beyond the Tyrannies of Geography

• What are the ramifications of a medium with limited physical characteristics?
• Shift in thinking along many dimensions:
  • Time, geography, rules, demographics, personal and business goals, and distribution
• What's extensible and what's not?

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

• 1957: ARPA formed
• 1969: First ARPANET nodes
• 1986: NSFNET created
• 1991: WAIS, Gopher, and WWW released
  
  
• If 1995 was the year of the Internet, what does that make 1996?

How far have we come?

• Perception as a function of time
• Net-head's View
  • Graphics, Text & Video? --Cool
  • So many hosts, so little time

How Far Have We Really Come?

• Functionality is in the eye of the beholder
  • Performance is poor
  • Bandwidth is poor
  • Quality is variable

Why is the Net Hot?

• Heavy-duty hype
  • Media madness breeds the Cosmo Perception
• "Katmandu Effect"
  • Perceived competition breeds accelerated adoption
• Often-simplistic view of interactive market characteristics
  • "Reese's Pieces" mentality

About the Hype...

Is There Perceived Value For Consumers?

• Is the information valuable?
• Is the process simple?
• Are the tools usable?
• Is the price acceptable?
• Do they receive what they expect?
• How many will really be online?

Is There Perceived Value For Business?

• Is the information valuable?
• Is the process simple?
• Are the tools usable?
• Is the price acceptable?
• Do they receive what they expect?

Why Do Business Go On-line?

• Businesses should support business purposes
  • Be cool
  • Inform
  • Support internal needs
  • Interact with other businesses
  • Make money

Is Electronic Commerce Here Yet?

• Secure direct
• Secure verification
• Secure coin
  
  
• Is Electronic Commerce Here Yet?
  • In a Word: No!

But "Commerce" Isn't Only Money

What's Missing For Business?

• Behavior tracking
• Central registries
• Usable statistics
• Good publishing tools
• Simple, ubiquitous interfaces to existing apps

Is All The Buzz A Business?

• Companies should be able to:
  • Perform a business analysis
  • Have a reasonable opportunity to generate a sufficient volume of activity
    • Kind, behavior
  • Have sufficiently dependable technology
  • Support their existing business processes
  • Be able to assess effectiveness
• What characteristics will influence these?

Catch the Waves

• Hardware platform
• Software platform
• Bandwidth
• ISPs and online services
• Legal environment
• Intranet

What's The Hardware Platform for The New Generation?

• TV or PC?
• Wintel or NetBoy?
• Couch potato or mouse potato?

Wave #1: The Next Age of the Information Applicance

• There will be:
  • Monitor
  • Processor
  • Operating System
  • Applications
  • Storage
• Look to consumer electronics

Of Browser Battles & OS Platforms

• Why does a browser matter?
  • How did Netscape get where it is?
  • Where is Netscape, exactly?
  • Why do ISVs matter?
• Why is java being seen as The Next Big Thing?

Wave #2: The Battle For An Abstraction Layer

• First Layer: Operating System
• Second Layer: Browser or Server
• Third Layer: Languages & Add-Ins

Where will the abstraction layer solidify?

What's the Data Pipe for the Next Generation?

• ISDN or Cable Modem?
• T1 or ATM?
• Landline or skyline?
• Asymetrical or symmetrical?
• At what point is there "enough" bandwidth?

Wave #3: Bandwidth Limitations Fall

• Patchwork nature of communications infrastructures
  • Single-pair copper to fiber
  • "Wireless cable" to satellite broadcast
• The roads must roll
  • Consumer confusion is assured
• Bandwidth becomes the new status symbol

The New Distribution Conduits

• Software
  • Historical dependence on physical distribution mechanisms
    • Storage media
    • Resale
  • Consumer market softened by CD-ROM distribution
    • Reduced pacakaging requirements

The New Distribution Conduits

• Content
  • Stored information becomes randomly available
  • Viewing process indistinguishable from broadcast media
• When bandwidth is no longer an issue, what can't be distributed electronically

Wave #4: Distribution Stops Getting Physical

• Coming overlap of distribution medium and (acceptable) bandwidth
  • Bandwidth becomes a competitive advantage
• What happens to viewing and purchasing behavior?

Where Do The ISPs Fit?

• Conduits or content?
• Services or software comapnies?
• Search for sustainable position

Wave #5: Pipelayers Consolidate

• Of friction and churn
  • Monthly fee vs subscription
  • Live and die by the sword
• the tyranny of arbitage
  • The roar of the RBOCs, the smell of the crowd

Where do the Online Services Fit?

• America Online
• Compuserve
• Prodigy
• Delphi Internet
• Dinosaurs or doorways?

Wave #6: Only the Strong Survive

• Communities vs Commodities
• "Out-of-band" services can survive and thrive
• Package, package, package

Give Me Liberty

• Telecom Bill and other controls
  • ACLU vs. Reno
    • In process
    • Definition of "indecent"?
  • Sanger vs. Reno
    • Provision is unconstitutional
    • No ruling on merits

Wave #7: Think Locally, Act Locally

• Few controls on controls
• What's not understood must be legislated
• Only solution is education
• Generation Z will have other problems

HTML Becomes Corporate Lingua Franca

• Internal company publishing overtakes "groupware"
• Fundamental nature of low-bandwidth networking infrastructure changes
  • Local connection to international network with no packet charges

Wave #8: Virtual Corporations in the Virtual World

• Melting the hard boundaries of corporations
• Building cross-disciplinary, cross-company workgroups
• Electronic Company Intercharge

How Should Applications Work In This Environment?

• Recombinant
• Atomistic
• Adapts to change

Wave #9: the Next Wave of Enterprise Applications

• Applicatios designed specifically for an Internet environment
  • Goodbye, client-server, hello ubiquitous peers
• New mentality for what applications must do

Take My Advice, At Any Price

• Users
  • Do your Homework
    • Internally
    • Externally
  • Perform as much of business analysis as you can
  • Use the right tools
  • Assess the effectiveness of what you do
• Do more

• Vendors
  • Realize we're past the era of products for Net-heads
  • Create usable products
  • Avoid the Reese's Pieces mentality
• Deliver More!!