Interesting posts recently from two people who have an important role in defining the future of the browser. Firstly, I missed it while I was in transit in the US, but Mozilla developer Alex Faaborg posted the slides of his presentation at the recent Web 2.0 Expo. They are fascinating and show clearly where Mozilla is headed with Firefox 3. The slide below is Alex's representation of the evolution so far: from the browser as book (finding information) in the 90's, to browser as radio in 2005 (subscribe to info), to a vision of the browser as switchboard in 2008 (move information around).
Alex noted in his presentation that at each stage the Web browser has been trying to keep up with the evolution of the Web - e.g. the somewhat messy transition to subscribing to RSS feeds (remember the page full of XML code you used to be confronted with every time you clicked an RSS button, or worse, clicked on a button labeled "XML"). Alex says the same thing is happening now for other types of structured data - and he gave the common example of calendaring information, which varies across Outlook, Apple iCal, Google and other formats. According to Alex, microformats are the answer to this issue - but which ones will Firefox natively support? Alex outlined 3 fundamental types: identity (hCard), geo (geo, adr), and calendar (hCalendar).
So to the question of what a microformat-aware Web browser looks like? Here's a demo that Alex showed at Web 2.0 Expo, showing microformats support in the URL bar:
There were other design options presented (e.g. in the toolbar, or little icons in the main content area), but the above design fits in well with the current Firefox 2 design. So just as Firefox 2 currently automatically recognizes a webpage with an RSS feed on it, in the URL bar, so to will Firefox 3 recognize microformats support in a webpage. It will display a drop-down list of options, based on the microformats in the page - e.g. add an event to your chosen calendar application. This is what is meant by Firefox 3 being an "information broker", which you'll recall we wrote about at the beginning of this year.
There is still the small matter of how publishers enter microformats into their content, but the general consensus is that blog platforms (like Wordpress and MovableType) will integrate that into their tools.
Overall, an excellent presentation by Alex and I for one applaud what Mozilla is doing to evolve the web browser into an information broker. I know that others are heading in this direction too, for example Maxthon, so this is indeed looking like the next stage in the evolution of browsers.
But wait, there's more! Ex-Flock hybrid designer Chris Messina has just published a lengthy vlog post outlining his thoughts on Mozilla's future. He's really talking about way beyond Firefox 3 though, as he wants Mozilla to become a true open source platform company - and essentially compete with the proprietary "run anywhere" frameworks of Microsoft, Adobe and Sun (with their Silverlight, Apollo and JavaFX technologies respectively). Chris wants Mozilla to build tools around open source technologies like XUL (XML User Interface Language). Essentially he sees Mozilla as the savior of the Open Web. Somewhat surprisingly, he cites Google as a good role model for Mozilla - but perhaps he was just referring to Google's ability to move things forward. Near the end of his accompanying blog post, Chris notes that "firefox is NOT an information broker!" - but I didn't hear anything to back that statement up in the video (did I miss that part?).
Also Anne Zelenka has some great thoughts on the future of Mozilla.
I agree with much of what Chris said, but on the other hand it is quite high level and focused on developers and the open source community. Personally I like where Mozilla is headed with Firefox 3, because the "information broker" concept is actually useful to everyday people - Joe Six Pack, as Chris called them. Firefox 3 is aiming to take the hassle out of web tasks that are a pain to deal with in 2007, like adding an event I come across on a webpage to my calendar of choice. I'm sure Chris agrees with me on this, it's just that he's looking at it from the point of view of an Open Web proponent. He wants Mozilla to become a much better open source platform for developers, which is certainly a great ideal to aspire to.
For now though, I'm looking forward to Firefox 3 and for that matter where other browser startups like Flock and Maxthon are headed. The browser is not dead - it's just a question of how it continues to evolve. Chris is right that Mozilla needs to prepare itself for the future, as Microsoft and Adobe are doing, but being an information broker is a step in the right direction. And you watch, IE8 will surely follow with the same concept in 2008 - after Firefox 3 comes out with it first.
What do others think? Is the browser dead? What's its future?
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Well, I do agree with you -- and said that I'm glad to have folks like Alex and Mike working on microformats in the browser -- that's certainly significant and I applaud their incremental work in this area.
What I don't like about the browser becoming an information broker is that, at least in my case, it still loads to much decision making on my -- the user's -- back. As I said, I want a true "user agent" that is able to arbitrage information for me -- to pull out the events automagically and add them to an internal calendar that I can search through later... like Spotlight on the Mac... This is what I wanted in Flock when we embedded the Lucene browser -- the ability to pull out semantic data and save it for later. Routing that information is certainly useful and pragmatic but IMO is frontloading a lot of functionality that can be tucked away or at least integrated in more innovative ways.
I do like Alex's analogies, but I'd also like to see some new ways of thinking about this stuff... are we only repeating what's already happened but simply accelerating and adding to the density of information flows? I think we're doing much more than that and have yet to come up with a real mental model that represents where we're going... unless you look at the brain, the human body and the planet... ;)
Posted by: Chris Messina | May 10, 2007 7:05 PM
Of course IE8 will "follow suit" with microformat support. Microformat support in IE8 is one of the few tidbits if info Microsoft has mentioned about the browser (at MIX07).
While microformats do seem to be very useful to the tech-savy, I am not convinced it will catch on mainstream. Just look at RSS. It's a great technology that I wouldn't want to live without but my mom doesn't know or care about it. It's really easy to use RSS in IE7 or Firefox 2 but most people still don't.
Posted by: N8 | May 10, 2007 7:09 PM
Chris, thanks for clarifying. Although what you outlined sounds like a similar amount of manual work for the user, plus it's a new paradigm for them to learn and removes the context of the webpage; ref "to pull out the events automagically and add them to an internal calendar that I can search through later..." In any case, interested to know more about that concept.
N8, yes MS did say they would support microformats. But, as you implied, there are precious few details other than that. So I don't know if they are proposing what Alex has laid out for Fx3.
I see your point re whether normal people will use it - but then it seems compelling to simply add an event from a webpage (almost?) automagically to your calendar.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | May 10, 2007 8:18 PM
Great Article... those are the types of articles i like most from you :)
I have a concern... i think if web services used open standards this will make the switching cost almost a zero... for example: i'm using google calendar today and tomorrow i can use Yahoo calendar (because i can move with my bags with microformats) which i think will be a concern for web service maybe like IM interoperability... so what do you think will it be preferable for startups & large web companies to support microformats or will they fear the switching costs?! i think microformats will heat up the the battle between companies to offer better services since the switching cost tends to be zero.
Posted by: web lockr | May 10, 2007 10:03 PM
phoey!
Posted by: Hydrogen Whiskey | May 11, 2007 3:27 AM
Interesting ideas, I was thinking about the calendar problem the other day when adding an eVite to my calendar. Of course, I didn't want it to be downloaded to my work (Outlook) calendar, I wanted it in my personal (Yahoo!) calendar. To keep with the RSS analogy, buttons that direct the information to common/popular services/applications would be great the way sites link to popular RSS aggregation tools (Newsgator, My Yahoo).
Although on the subject of RSS, don't entirely agree that the page of XML phenomenon has disappeared, I still see it fairly regularly. Which brings up a problem, keeping Web site/application owners on the hook for updating their site to latest technologies and standards.
Posted by: Michael Caton | May 11, 2007 9:28 AM
The browser will live, but it will be invisible. People
want to see web pages, not the browser. The browser will have no toolbars, navigation bar, or status bar. Then people can make web apps that look as good as anything running on appollo.
Posted by: Coleman Foley | May 11, 2007 10:45 AM
I agree; adding microformats features and offline capabilities is the way to go for Mozilla - but I don't want it to get bloated, I just want it to be a super-fast, super-stable platform that can be enhanced by 3rd party developers. Perhaps these additions should be leaved to them. But particularly, I don't understand this social networking integration - if they do that, I'll stick with my IE, why try something Flock tried and (kinda) failed; why losing the foundation's core principles and simplicity!
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | May 11, 2007 10:48 AM
Minor correction:
"He's really talking about way beyond Firefox 3 though, as he wants Mozilla to become a true open source platform company - and essentially compete with the proprietary "run anywhere" frameworks of Microsoft, Adobe and Sun (with their Silverlight, Apollo and JavaFX technologies respectively)."
JavaFX and the majority of Java is now open sourced, not proprietary anymore. I haven't seen JavaFX, and still have painful memories of JRE being slow and troublesome plus Java apps usually being quite ugly, but I think it has to be asked, is it worth reinventing the open-sourced wheel?
Posted by: Sam | May 12, 2007 1:56 AM
Sam, I think for the sake of the Java developers who want a more lightweight platform, JavaFX might be worth a look. Ditto, Siverlight is a pathway to rapidly deployable internet apps for the .NET crowd.
My gut feeling is that Mitchell (Mozilla CEO) was right when she said that Mozilla needs to stay a user-focused company rather than a developer-focused company, and that keeping Firefox competitive against proprietary browsers is the best way to insure that the web stays an open platform.
Posted by: Seth Wagoner | May 13, 2007 8:35 AM
I do agree with u.
Posted by: Hema | May 15, 2007 4:37 AM
This is the first time I've really understood the microformats movement. I think its a good idea, but hopefully it doesn't get fragmented with too many formats (such as rss and atom). We don't need confusion just something that works.
Posted by: Motorcycle Guy | May 15, 2007 6:38 AM