Beyond the browser at MIX 06
I thought I'd spend some time this evening and watch the Keynote for MIX 06 in Las Vegas. (You can visit MIX virtually too) Bill Gates was talking about how the way we interact with the web. You know, when I started browsing the web, the website designers tightly controlled what we could do with the web, but oh, how times have changed... Now with the introduction of Web 2.0 applications, mashups and the evolution of the Internet as a platform for developers, the way the web works is that the people control how the web is used. Take the map on my home page for example: A simple little application that changes according to how many people visit the page. So much so, that the statistics are only updated weekly now, not daily. So users are controlling the interaction with the app. Just like blogs. Just like chats, just like community sites like MySpace (and yes I do have a profile if you wanted to check...)
Bill also talked about the 2ft experience. I'm having a 2ft experience right now, typing this on my Laptop. But there's a 10ft experience that you can have with your Media Centre PC (and more if you use your Xbox360 as a media centre extender). The tools that you can use to interact with the Internet either through your browser, or you can use the new tools that go so much beyond the browser. I like that. Tim O'Brian also had some good comments about where we're going in the press announcement
But the thing that made me jump out of my chair was one of the side comments that Bill made during his chat to Tim O'Reilly. Bill talked about the ability to borrow someone elses Windows mobile phone, authenticate sucessfully, and have your apps appear on their device. Now thats really impressive... and we're already working on it too... Wow!
So I need to have a closer look at the Web 2.0 stuff and help to change the way that the web works... watch this space..