Will the Internet continue to be mainly a tool to broadcast tremendous amount of information or it will evolve as a platform where we will have access to infinity of web services?
I am starting to use web services in prevision of my India trip in 2 months. I started using a web mail application to access my POP account instead of Outlook; I started using Bloglines to retrieve my feeds instead of Omea Reader; I started to use b2Evolution to blog instead of Radio Userland.
The first reason why I started to use these web services was to access them, anywhere in the world.
However I found that I got much more advantages by using these web services instead of their standalone software counterpart considering the fact that I get rid of using 3 memory and CPU consuming applications. It is a great advantage for me considering that I work on a 2 years old laptop with just enough memory to run Windows XP. A simple lightweight application, IE, give me access to all these services. Enhance it with table browsing and you have a really good replacement for these applications.
We, Occidental people, can afford high quality and high priced computers. However, the next computer market comes from the East. Millions of people are waiting to enter into the cybernetic age. They will not enter it with 3000$ computers, but with 200$ ones. The fact is that with only one a web browser, they will have access to all available web services, like us. Will the era of standalone computer softwares, as we know it, will vanish? Probably not for specialized software, but you could bet that it will be the case for mainstream software applications.
Another thing is that countries like India seems to create computer communities and widespread computer education with cybercafés. These web services will become their “virtual desktop”. They will have the same productive power, without owning any computers, from anywhere in their countries.
Finally, is the future of Internet these web services? Personally, the more I think about it, the more I think that they are.
There is a non exhaustive list of the types of web services you can access on the Internet.
- Web Mail. Hotmail; Gmail; Yahoo
- Chat systems. MSN Messenger
- Feed readers. Bloglines; Newsgator
- Pinging services. Fred’s ping service (shameless advertisement); Ping-O-Matic
- Management and organization. Basecamp; Backpack; Ta-Da List
You, what type of web services are you using? Send me them and I will add them to the list.