10 Future Web Trends
We're well into the current era of the Web, commonly referred to as Web 2.0. Features of this phase of the Web include search, social networks, online media (music, video, etc), content aggregation and syndication (RSS), mashups (APIs), and much more. Currently the Web is still mostly accessed via a PC, but we're starting to see more Web excitement from mobile devices (e.g. iPhone) and television sets (e.g. XBox Live 360).
What then can we expect from the next 10 or so years on the Web? As NatC commented in this week's poll, the biggest impact of the Web in 10 years time won't necessarily be via a computer screen - "your online activity will be mixed with your presence, travels, objects you buy or act with." Also a lot of crossover will occur among the 10 trends below (and more) and there will be Web technologies that become enormously popular that we can't predict now.
Bearing all that in mind, here are 10 Web trends to look out for over the next 10 years...
1. Semantic Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision for a Semantic Web has been The Next Big Thing for a long time now. Indeed it's become almost mythical, like Moby Dick. In a nutshell, the Semantic Web is about machines talking to machines. It's about making the Web more 'intelligent', or as Berners-Lee himself described it: computers "analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers." At other times, Berners-Lee has described it as "the application of weblike design to data" - for example designing for re-use of information.
As Alex Iskold wrote in The Road to the Semantic Web, the core idea of the Semantic Web is to create the meta data describing data, which will enable computers to process the meaning of things. Once computers are equipped with semantics, they will be capable of solving complex semantical optimization problems.
So when will the Semantic Web arrive? The building blocks are here already: RDF, OWL, microformats are a few of them. But as Alex noted in his post, it will take some time to annotate the world's information and then to capture personal information in the right way. Some companies, such as Hakia and Powerset and Alex's own AdaptiveBlue, are actively trying to implement the Semantic Web. So we are getting close, but we are probably a few years off still before the big promise of the Semantic Web is fulfilled.
Semantic Web pic by dullhunk
2. Artificial Intelligence
Possibly the ultimate Next Big Thing in the history of computing, AI has been the dream of computer scientists since 1950 - when Alan Turing introduced the Turing test to test a machine's capability to participate in human-like conversation. In the context of the Web, AI means making intelligent machines. In that sense, it has some things in common with the Semantic Web vision.
We've only begun to scratch the surface of AI on the Web. Amazon.com has attempted to introduce aspects of AI with Mechanical
Turk, their task management service. It enables computer programs to
co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks which computers are
unable to do. Since its launch on 2 November 2005, Mechanical Turk has gradually built up a
following - there is a forum for "Turkers" called Turker
Nation, which appears to have light-to-medium level patronage. However we reported in January that Mturk isn't being used as much as the initial
hype period in Nov-Dec 05.
Nevertheless, AI has a lot of promise on the Web. AI techniques are being used in "search 2.0" companies like Hakia and Powerset. Numenta is an exciting new company by tech legend Jeff Hawkins, which is attempting to build a new, brain-like computing paradigm - with neural networks and cellular automata. In english this means that Numenta is trying to enable computers to tackle problems that come easy to us humans, like recognizing faces or seeing patterns in music. But since computers are much faster than humans when it comes to computation, we hope that new frontiers will be broken - enabling us to solve the problems that were unreachable before.
3. Virtual Worlds
Second Life gets a lot of mainstream media attention as a future Web system. But at a recent Supernova panel that Sean Ammirati attended, the discussion touched on many other virtual world opportunities. The following graphic summarizes it well:
Looking at Korea as an example, as the 'young generation' grows up and infrastructure is built out, virtual worlds will become a vibrant market all over the world over the next 10 years.
It's not just about digital life, but also making our real life more digital. As Alex Iskold explained, on one hand we have the rapid rise of Second Life and other virtual worlds. On the other we are beginning to annotate our planet with digital information, via technologies like Google Earth.
4. Mobile
Mobile Web is another Next Big Thing on slow boil. It's already big in parts of Asia and Europe, and it received a kick in the US market this year with the release of Apple's iPhone. This is just the beginning. In 10 years time there will be many more location-aware services available via mobile devices; such as getting personalized shopping offers as you walk through your local mall, or getting map directions while driving your car, or hooking up with your friends on a Friday night. Look for the big Internet companies like Yahoo and Google to become key mobile portals, alongside the mobile operators.
Companies like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Palm, Blackberry and Microsoft have been active in the Mobile Web for years now, but one of the main issues with Mobile Web has always been usability. The iPhone has a revolutionary UI that makes it easier for users to browse the Web, using zooming, pinching and other methods. Also, as Alex Iskold noted, the iPhone is a strategy that may expand Apple's sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search.
So even despite the iPhone hype, in the US at least (and probably other countries when it arrives) the iPhone will probably be seen in 10 years time as the breakthrough Mobile Web device.
5. Attention Economy
The Attention Economy is a marketplace where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Examples include personalized news, personalized search, alerts and recommendations to buy. The Attention Economy is about the consumer having choice - they get to choose where their attention is 'spent'. Another key ingredient in the attention game is relevancy. As long as the consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
Expect to see this concept become more important to the Web's economy over the next decade. We're already seeing it with the likes of Amazon and Netflix, but there is a lot more opportunity yet to explore from startups.
Image from The Attention Economy: An Overview, by Alex Iskold
6. Web Sites as Web Services
Alex Iskold wrote in March that as more and more of the Web is becoming remixable, the entire system is turning into both a platform and the database. Major web sites are going to be transformed into web services - and will effectively expose their information to the world. Such transformations are never smooth - e.g. scalability is a big issue and legal aspects are never simple. But, said Alex, it is not a question of if web sites become web services, but when and how.
The transformation will happen in one of two ways. Some web sites will follow the example of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr and will offer their information via a REST API. Others will try to keep their information proprietary, but it will be opened via mashups created using services like Dapper, Teqlo and Yahoo! Pipes. The net effect will be that unstructured information will give way to structured information - paving the road to more intelligent computing.
Note that we can also see this trend play out currently with widgets and especially Facebook in 2007. Perhaps in 10 years time the web services landscape will be much more open, because the 'walled garden' problem is still with us in 2007.
Image from Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services, by Alex Iskold
7. Online Video / Internet TV
This is a trend that has already exploded on the Web - but you still get the sense there's a lot more to come yet. In October 2006 Google acquired the hottest online video property on the planet, YouTube. Later on that same month, news came out that the founders of Kazaa and Skype were building an Internet TV service, nicknamed The Venice Project (later named Joost). In 2007, YouTube continues to dominate. Meanwhile Internet TV services are slowly getting off the ground.
Our network blog last100 has an excellent overview of the current Internet TV landscape, with reviews of 8 Internet TV apps. Read/WriteWeb's Josh Catone also reviewed 3 of them - Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo.
It's fair to say that in 10 years time, Internet TV will be totally different to what it is today. Higher quality pictures, more powerful streaming, personalization, sharing, and much more - it's all coming over the next decade. Perhaps the big question is: how will the current mainstream TV networks (NBC, CNN, etc) adapt?
Zattoo, from Internet Killed The Television Star: Reviews of Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo, and More, by Josh Catone
8. Rich Internet Apps
As the current trend of hybrid
web/desktop apps continues, expect to see RIA (rich internet apps) continue to increase in use and functionality. Adobe's AIR platform (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is one of the leaders, along with Microsoft with its Windows
Presentation Foundation. Also in the mix is Laszlo with its open source OpenLaszlo
platform and there are several other startups offering RIA platforms. Let's not forget also that Ajax is generally considered to be an RIA - it remains to be seen though how long Ajax lasts, or whether there will be a '2.0'.
As Ryan Stewart wrote for Read/WriteWeb back in April 2006 (well before he joined Adobe), "Rich Internet Apps allow sophisticated effects and transitions that are important in keeping the user engaged. This means developers will be able to take the amazing changes in the Web for granted and start focusing on a flawless experience for the users. It is going to be an exciting time for anyone involved in building the new Web, because the interfaces are finally catching up with the content."
The past year has proven Ryan right, with Adobe and Microsoft duking it out with RIA technologies. And there's a lot more innovation to happen yet, so in 10 years time I can't wait to see what the lay of the RIA land is!
9. International Web
As of 2007, the US is still the major market in the Web. But in 10 years time, things might be very different. China is often touted as a growth market, but other countries with big populations will also grow - India and African nations for example.
For most web 2.0 apps and websites (R/WW included), the US market makes up over 50% of their users. Indeed, comScore reported in November 2006 that 3/4 of traffic to top websites is international. comScore said that 14 of the top 25 US Web properties now attract more visitors from outside the US than from within. That includes the top 5 US properties - Yahoo! Sites, Time Warner Network, Microsoft, Google Sites, and eBay.
However, it is still early days and the revenues are not big in international markets at this point. In 10 years time, revenue will probably be flowing from the International Web.
10. Personalization
Personalization has been a strong theme in 2007, particularly with Google. Indeed Read/WriteWeb did a feature week on Personalizing Google. But you can see this trend play out among a lot of web 2.0 startups and companies - from last.fm to MyStrands to Yahoo homepage and more.
What can we expect over the next decade? Recently we asked Sep Kamvar, Lead Software Engineer for Personalization at Google, whether there will be a 'Personal PageRank' system in the future. He replied:
"We have various levels of personalization. For those who are signed up for Web History, we have the deepest personalization, but even for those who are not signed up for Web History, we personalize your results based on what country you are searching from. As we move forward, personalization will continue to be a gradient; the more you share with Google, the more tailored your results will be."
If nothing else, it'll be fascinating to track how Google uses personalization over the coming years - and how it deals with the privacy issues.
Conclusion
We've covered a lot of ground in this post, so tell us know what you think of our predictions. What other Web trends do you forsee over the next decade?
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Richard,
This post simply rocks - its a great, great summary, thanks for putting it together!
Alex
That's a great summary! I wonder if we shouldn't add to this list "discreet". I think one of the most important steps forward for the internet is integration into everyday devices. Your grocery-ordering refrigerator. Your health-monitoring bathroom. Or does this fall under 'semantic web' of machines talking to machines?
We group IPtv into the mobile media space ... but are VERY focused on the mobile media and virtual environments from an edducational content providers perspective... a few of our Labs insights:
http://labs.greenbush.us
http://tinyurl.com/3awmxb
http://tinyurl.com/33sdq5
As a company currently working with AI developers in India and developing rich internet applications, I think you present a very comprehensive list, all of which have a shared theme: signal vs noise, we live in the noise era with Google our best bet at finding the signal, often 17,567,143 signals - the Web in 10 years will be about the signal - not thinking for me, but guiding my thoughts and responding to my habits.
I think this is an accurate prediction of things to come based on what we know today. There's no telling what some kid in a basement has thought up, though.
Also, you forgot to mention XUL under Rich Internet Applications. XUL is the language Firefox is built on, and soon, XUL Runner will be released as a standalone platform for XUL apps like Firefox and all the firefox extensions.
You forget about the E-government, will have a big impact on our relation with the government and it's coming soon.
But very nice review :)
I think a web trend that most people miss is the transformation of the web into an exciting hyperlocal tool. The combo of social web, geo-tagging standards, gps-enabled mobile devices, the eventual arrival en masse of small merchants and online municipal governments will forever change the way we see our city or our neighborhood.
Amazing post, Richard! You've done a terrific job of summarizing the key trends of the web at this time.
One important (and invisible) trend I would add to this list is: the Convergence of Data. Increasingly, we can see content and data from disparate sources all over the web being collected, classified and integrated.
The exciting part is that it enables us to create new meaning out of the whole, information that was not available until many different sources of data had been combined together. This includes crowd-sourcing and mashups, but also much more; it's a combination of #1 and #6 in your list above.
Some examples:
- Once search engines can discern the "perspective" of an article using semantic analysis, a news site could give us a balanced story that includes many different viewpoints. [Indeed, techmeme already does that to some extent, but without the semantic parsing. :-)]
- By classifying health-related information from around the web into a taxonomy, physicians and patients can begin to understand the broader implications of a medical condition, drug interactions, etc.
- By bringing together information about human needs and suffering, philanthropic organizations and individuals, and scientific and economic data, in the future we can better optimize global resources to help those most in need.
Nice...and you finally got the "attention" bit I see ;-)
open source production communities becoming the primary means of software production.
Richard,
Nice summary. Although I disagree on Amazon Mechanical Turk being labeled "Artificial Intelligence". Their conclusion, summed up in the motto, "Artificial Artificial Intelligence", is that only humans can perform some tasks. Mturk, as you correctly point, simply coordinates those tasks. No AI involved.
I would substitute "Collective Intelligence" for "Artificial Intelligence" on your list. Artificial Intelligence is a long way off; Collective Intelligence - the intelligent aggregation of human knowledge for decision making - is on the horizon.
David Moss
www.crowdrules.com
great post... looking forward to see which ones are going to be right...
Another abusrd and inane post that describes nothing original. Most of the stuff it does describe is stuff that has been fantasized about by computer scientists for decades. I have to wonder sometimes if these people are from a different planet or something.
The biggest thing that has happened, is happening, and will happen has to do with humans interacting with the web ala social networking like facebook, myspace, eHarmony even. That is not on the list, however.
Using the web as facilitator for social networks, by the way, is much newer than AI and many of the other things mentioned. Hook up our brains properly, and AI becomes fucking redundant. I guess the computer geniuses out there will never get it though. Algorithms solve everything.
geez
a little behind the curve, richard?
don't go out on a limb or anything...
"websites as services" - spot on.. thats the sweet spot !!
During the next ten years, Wimax should finally become virtually ubiquitous, allowing for a far deeper internet experience--websites will really be sites rather than pages.
Great insights... thanks for sharing, Richard! I think mobile web will be essential to our lives. Currently, wireless bandwidth and data coverage is still lacking... that will change as the big telecom companies continue to build out their infrastructures... Sprint PCS is betting on WiMax to do that.
Wow. Great post. I love your insight into each area.
One small comment about e-government is a small predictor about the revolution that is inevitable. People are realizing that representatives distort the will of the people. They were necessary before communications were instant and nationwide, but today they are the sourse of major distortion of the will of the people. As soon as the people get a taste of real direct democracy, the world as we have known it will dissapear. There will be desperate attempts by the Kings and their cronies (elected representatives bought and paid for by big business) to hang on to their advantages. It will be interesting to see who will prevail, the Kings and their cronies or the will of the people. If the Sunni's of Iraq are any indication, the change may not be pretty.
I think that you are missing one important point, "The Web as an Operating System". Within two generations of browsers, browsers will become powerful enough to host almost any Windows application on any device that can support a browser. This will remove the need to monolithic operating systems such as Windows. There are already simple AJAX operating systems online now.
These are not future web trends, these are current trends. Its a misleading title.
I don't know - I didn't see anything surprising or off the wall...and that's one thing you can always count on. Something coming from left field - something that few people ever thought of...
Truly a revolution is ongoing. There is a likeness of what happened decades ago. People produced their own electrical power but when big power plants came in, they abandoned their own sources and simply connected into the main power line which was reliable and far more cheaper.
Now, companies who get it have started to disconnect from their computer systems and have coupled into the internet which undoubtedly would bring in more business and improved operations.
http://www.grandstart.com
Richard, you forgot (and it's a huge oversight): Google + CYC in the AI part.
Besides, Mechanical Turk is human, not AI.
In addition, I'm not sure Numenta uses cellular automata at all.
Furthermore, Ben Goertzel also has interesting new technology about AI.
Very well written. Thanks Richard.
Facebook only gets a mention?! bwahahahahaha!!!!!
Can't argue with these trends as most seem to be already manifesting right now.
Here's a more controversial one:
Content Creators and those that that index, host and monetize their content make peace, paving the way for the online content economy to flourish. Technology will give content creators and publishers full visibility over how their content moves across the Internet, enabling new forms of licensing - relegating DMCA takedown notices to their rightful place as an option of last resort
Great review.
Though you missed the part on recommendation/discovery services/technology as part of AI ;)
The major issue in video will be who will control the best content. Apple has started it but with NBC's announcement to leave they're showing that Jobs isn't the only game in town. The audience may follow them or seek out alternative possibly illegal solutions. I've got more in a post entitled Can media companies overcome iTunes' stranglehold on music and video pricing?
Plus, I greatly appreciate the top eight analysis on the video sites. I have a nice companion follow up. Where to catch TV and movies you want to watch.
Missed a couple of things.
The 3D digital buttocks in all its forms.
Computer crime waves, including physical destruction of infrastructure and cyber disruption of entire economies.
And chatbots that endlessly talk to each other. That'll be fun, for awhile. Maybe they could play chess.
this is the future..
but what about 20 years or 100 year or billions of years a head.
what kind of life will be spreading in outer space seeking new planets?
it starts now.
you can go to www.beinspace.com
upload your web page or blog or send DNA , give the file a name and a link to your site and send it to deep space.
www.beinspace.com
it starts now.
you can go to www.beinspace.com
upload your web page or blog or send DNA , give the file a name and a link to your site and send it to deep space.
ya it is absolutely right
Great article. Personalisation is one of the main things we can expect. Not to sure about internet TV...
No mention of the hugely addictive Habbo virtual world?
Wow. This is an excellent post. I'd nominate Freebase as another example of a way Semantic Web is becoming a reality--I think if done right it could be on the level of Wikipedia in the near future.
Strikes me there's nothing here that doesn't directly mirror how communications have developed offline over the centuries. No one is actually doing anything revolutionary on the web - they're just inventing new, quicker, lazier ways to do the same old things, ie talk to each other, sell stuff to each other, share information, repackage several different products into a service... Yawn.
When is technology actually going to invent something new, instead of innovate on age-old human discourse...
Richard,
Great Post. Very well summarised.
Virtual Worlds:
This is really exciting. Do you mean we can see a virtual parellel world on the net. Every individual in the world having his own digital clone on the net.
With respect to marketing- Like Cold Calls due to advent of telephony, there will be something else which will target its business in the Virtual world.
Would you expect the barter system to come back. People exchanging services. Some new departments starting in organisations who manage the virtual world.
Marketing in air...Being not sure if someone will see it or not?
Also, people recognised by a unique database number world wide than his first or last name.
Need to wait and watch. Its really exiting to visualise the virtual future.
Richard,
Excellent post. I think "Web Sites as Web Services" will be a big thing. However, as you mention, the web has to become much more open and move away from the walled gardens to make this happen. Innovation around this would also provide opportunities for content publishers to share monetization revenues with content creators. Hopefully, marketers will become more susceptible to placing ads with user generated content that has been integrated from different sources.
I think AI/Semantic Web is cool but more of a pipe dream at this point. Again, the machines can only process the data they access (if the meta data is crap, they'll churn out crap).
The web is always changing some of the things comming up are really awesome. I love being involved in the web community. Nice article.
Nice post.
I would take out virtual worlds - that's going to remain niche. Can't see Mum & Dad taking that one up.
I would put something in about widespread adoption of RSS/XML feeds. When Mum & Dad and my non-geeky friends finally realise how useful feeds can be, that will revolutionise things. (we're seeing a partial example already with facebook & its newsfeeds)
Laurent
One concept touched upon here but not fully explored is how the presentation of the web will be changing. The convergence of the PC and the TV that has been discussed for quite some time will finally come to light, as we continue to blur the line between traditional broadcast media and YouTube-like new-media..
Robert H. Goretsky
Hoboken, NJ
It will be interesting to see how each of these plays out over the next few years, let alone the next 10. Each of these are ever changing so it would be hard to peg just exactly where they will go.
Really good post Richard.
Those ten are really big ideas and that says that this is a big space with lots of room to move.
I'd like to see a list of the 10 Biggest Moments in Web. Those times when really specific things happened that changed the landscape.
Some ideas from me;
Google AdSense - monetizing micro content.
FaceBook Apps - social operating system.
Twitter at SxSW - mass hysteria around a short message service.
Google Maps - The first time you scrolled around. "Woah! Dude!"
Cheers,
Mick a la Tangler
In the case of future trends, I noticed in a video game plot a device called a PErsonal Terminal (PET) in which the device was a metaweb tool that came with an AI program which did the dirty work of data/comm. retrieval and manipulation and which interacted directly with the user. Given that the fundamentals of web and program design that this technology would utilize are being created now, it's not out of reach of the imagination to assume that devices like these would be available sometime within the next decade.
Richard,
I fully agree on all points, but one of the most important topics of the future web is missing: Identity!
I understand you had only 10 bulletpoints and you had a hard time choosing from the top 100. But forming your online identity, controlling what personal data you give to whom and aggregating all your and your environments lifestreams in an open social network is simply essential for the further development of the web.
On the other hand we're really not talking about the next 10 years here - taking the first steps to offer solutions for at least 6 out of your 10 bulletpoints and adding Identity 2.0 on top will be here in a few days - more details here http://yowhassup.com/blog/2007/09/06/thoughts-on-designing-the-next-generation-of-social-websites-part-i/
I think also how we interact with the internet will change.
Think of flexible OLED touch-screens, new visualisation technologies which present data in a new way, etc.
I mean, why not interact directly with internet like now possible with for example the iPhone?
I think you overlooked microblogging. Its not just for teenagers, its for teams. Its also where publishing (blogging) and communications (email, IM, phone, SMS) collide in a meaningful way.
This is a well-written summary of all 10 technologies and trends. However, like others have said, these things are happening NOW. I can't even imagine what will be happening in 10 years.
Think about how much things have changed in the last ten years. Now think about how much things have changed in the last five...or how about TWO years!
A good number of people have already given up on premium cable or satellite in favor of downloading their favorite shows. The iPhone has changed the mobile game forever. Rich Internet Apps are here to stay -- especially with Microsoft getting in the game with Silverlight.
I think you're right to say that the "true promise" of these technologies has yet to be fulfilled; and perhaps we are, indeed, "a few years" out. But TEN? No way.
This is a well-written summary. Based on these 10 trends, I present a blend of these TEN. Though these discussed trends by their names are possibly short-term predictions, this blend of the 10 trends actually represents a certain future about a much longer period. I hope you might also enjoy this blend.
-- Yihong
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