An Introduction to Browser 2.0
But first…
Web 2.0. The second generation of Web-based communities has been with us for a few years and yet we still can’t boil the term down into an elevator speech for our clients. The closest we have thus far is when Tim O’Reilly tried to (re)define the term in December of last year, and I think he got as close to the mark as possible: Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network intelligence.
O’Reilly included Eric Schmidt’s even-briefer definition for Web 2.0: Don’t fight the Internet. I gravitate towards this definition for no other reason than it encapsulates O’Reilly’s strategy in something strikingly similar to ad copy. O’Reilly is the Account Planner to Schmidt the Copywriter.
So there we have it. Companies, marketers and advertisers, you must build applications that harness the intelligence and adjust to the demands of a community. Don’t fight the Internet.
My theory is that Web 2.0 ideals will slowly but inevitably trickle into the business model. Companies that are proactive and build applications that harness collective intelligence and adjust to customer demand will soon (now) position themselves as partner brands. Conversely, companies that resist Web 2.0 principles will soon be perceived as obstructive to the free flow of ideas. I’m hopeful my clients will choose the later.
And now…
Browser 2.0. This has been a concept swimming around in my head for a couple of months. The basis for this term is the growth and significance of virtual worlds like Second Life has increased the demand for adding a third dimension to all two-dimensional web browsers and websites.
Looking back at the definition of Web 2.0 (web as participation platform) versus its predecessor Web 1.0 (web as information source), I tend to dump the walled-garden that is Second Life into the 1.0 camp. They provide interaction and co-creation, yes, but the area in which I can play is controlled by Linden Labs. I must download their browser – not the browser of my choosing – and I must pay fees in the form of subscriptions, property taxes, and the like. In a sense, Second Life is the America Online of Web 2.0 – many of you will remember AOL’s belief that the web could be contained.
Fortunately, Linden Labs is starting to understand the importance of open-sourcing their software if they want to remain relevant. Just recently, ZDNet announced that Linden Labs was going the whole way and opening up the server code for Second Life. This is big news in that it furthers Linden Labs ambitions to be a fully-distributed 3D network built on interoperability and not owned by one company. Down with the walled garden effect, to hell with property taxes, and kiss the Linden monetary system goodbye.
Other giants are in the game. Google World is vying to be the standard software for Browser 2.0, and a group of Linux-like academics have started the Croquet project in hopes of developing truly open-sourced software, but at the end of the day the vast majority of web users won’t care who wins this battle.
What surfers will notice is that americanapparel.com just got a whole lot more interesting. As a shopper, I will enter AA’s website to discover that it has been turned into a virtual, three-dimensional store. Moreover, I’ll be able to adjust the racks and remove all the women’s clothing and kids stuff. The store will include basic t-shirts – the only two things I would consider buying from AA – in a sense making it “my” AA store.
The same thing can and will happen for any virtual retailer regardless of invetory or industry.
The bricks and mortar perspective that was lost when Browser 1.0 came on the scene will resurface, but this time the bricks will be “1”s and the mortar “0”s. From reality to no reality to virtual reality. So it goes…
People will surf these three-dimensional websites with one of their many avatars. One will include all the information one doesn’t have a problem giving out: a waist size for clothing retailers, a preference for Macs to computer stores, and the username and passcode for all of the online newspapers one reads. Other avatars will be used for other things – none of these reasons devious, of course. The point is that the opportunities for self expression within proprietary websites will finally come to fruition. The web will become personal in unheralded ways as it shifts from 2D to 3D.
Online forums will have a virtual space to hang out, be it a virtual coffee shop for poets or a virtual skyscraper-viewing-deck for Austin developers (a group I personally hang out with online). I’m a dork that way.
Most of the people reading this blog entry will likely be able to comprehend such a world as I’ve described above, but there’s more. All you need to do is include a new methods of surfing and you get a fundamentally different experience. Down with the mouse, up with the glove.
Earlier this month BusinessWeek put out a great article on virtual reality. They were very clear in their perspective: virtual reality 1.0 was a bust in the 90s – just like Web 1.0 – but VR 2.0 is on its way and it’s going to be huge.
One of the items they raved about was Gesture Studios’ Goodpoint. Straight out of the thinking from Minority Report, Goodpoint gloves are essentially juiced mouses. From the article: “Standing about 10 feet from a wall-size screen, he lifts his hands like a conductor. With a series of precise gestures, he calls up photos and videos of urban Los Angeles. Raising his thumbs and pointing his index fingers toward the screen as if miming a cowboy with two guns, he swiftly sorts the images, zooming in on certain buildings and playing snips of films depicting various street scenes. To pause the film, he extends one hand like a traffic cop. With other crisp movements, he can spin 3D objects in space or snatch a bullet point of text and drag it across the screen. “You just put on the gloves and go,” Parent explains.” 
Whoa: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/03/0322_magic_motion_ig/index_01.htm
The one thing I have noticed about Second Life is that very few people ever figure out how to fully express themselves through their Avatars with the buttons on a keyboard. However, there are a few that have been in-world long enough to have figured out all the hot keys. For instance, I was giving a speech in Second Life a month or so ago and I saw Avatars in the audience shake their heads and even wiggle in their seats as if they were confused and/or cautious about what I was saying. Whatever it was, it was virtual body language. Now put that capability into Goodpoint’s gloves and you have an avatar in a 3D browser with a level of self expression that is, to date, unrivaled. Moreover, this expression will be measureable by those who install metrics into their virtual stores.
The future of Browser 2.0 is unlimited, but what is certain is that my unborn child – due in about four weeks – is going to live in a world where the two-dimensional website is reserved for only the most amateurish of web designers, the mouse is an archaic tool much like an abacus, and an Avatar is a legitimate extension of his/herself.
Coming full circle…
So there we have it. Companies, marketers and advertisers, you must build three-dimensional browsers and websites that harness the intelligence and adjust to the demands of a community. Don’t fight the Internet.
My theory is that Browser 2.0 ideals will slowly but inevitably trickle into the business model. Companies that are proactive and build three-dimensional browsers and websites that harness collective intelligence and adjust to customer demand will soon (now) position themselves as partner brands. Conversely, companies that resist Browser 2.0 principles will soon be perceived as obstructive to the free flow of ideas. I’m hopeful my clients will choose the later.
1 response so far ↓
1 Andy Hunter // Apr 26, 2007 at 3:52 am
Yes Hiro, it’s quickly becoming a Snow Crash world ;) We’re just at the tip of the iceberg, and Second Life is just a small example of things to come.
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