Scott Rafer from Feedster and WiFinder fame will talk at the SD Forum Emerging Technology SIG about the changes to Internet Applications in an Always-On world.
Since the Internet bubble burst in 2000, always-on consumer broadband hit critical mass and the mobile Internet got going in earnest. As online usage habits in South Korea have repeatedly shown, pervasiveness of connectivity matters and matters non-linearly. The US, while well behind the last-mile broadband deployment curve, has hit sufficient critical mass to foster significant new innovation in Internet applications: social network software, the social networks themselves, and most significantly, weblogging. All these applications, plus ones we will see within a couple years but can not yet predict, are predicated on hyperlink schemes that are persistent, metadata rich, and characterize geometrically denser link meshes than anything assembled before 2002. These new Internet applications are far more valuable (Reed.com), both in terms of economics and utility, than the prior generation of Internet applications which were architected when connectivity was primarily intermittent. Beyond the applications themselves, a whole new generation of utilities, including transaction engines, directories, and search engines, are necessary to rationalize the web for users.
Met him once and can tell you he is very sharp and articulate. If you are in the Bay Area, don't miss it.
Tuesday, January 13 2004, 7:00 PM Cubberley Community Center - Palo Alto.
