Tim O'Reilly Points Toward Next 'Killer App'

santos_douglas writes "Extreme Tech has this article in which Tim O'Reilly, the man behind every geeks favorite tech manuals, points toward four major leading indicators that will predict the next likely 'killer app' to emerge from the hacker community. They are: (1) Amazon.com web services (2) BARWN (3) Hardware hackers and (4) online gaming communities."

Comments

heres my interpretation

[eenglish_ca]

Were gonna have a huge mass of incompatible hardware with lots of advertising for products on amazon, gonna be wireless with one of the standards making it only usuable in one part of the bay and will actually be made to play online games with. ha ha ha, actually that sounds a lot like modern laptops if you outfit them completely.

So where's the 'Killer App'?

[johny_qst]

I saw a lot of "yeah-technology" arguments about where grass-roots development is happening. But having access to buying things from amazon ubiquitously in my daily life.... don't need it or want it... does anyone? Gaming communities... maybe... let's see what happens to doom III mods at the end of the year... Wireless Networking... I like to go for walks to enjoy nature, not to focus on some digital device... Does anyone really see a killer app here?

Re:So where's the 'Killer App'?

[Rick the Red]

There's a problem with predicting the future -- it's almost impossible. We won't know the next "killer app" until it bites us on the butt.

My buddies and I used to try and guess the next "killer car" -- the Corvair was our benchmark. It was cheap and available and then suddenly it was rare, expensive, and desireable. The question was what car to buy today that would be worth more tomorrow. So far we're batting zero on that one. The Datsun 240Z and Mazda RX-7 looked promising, but they made so damn many of them that they never became rare. In hindsite I'd have to say we'll never see another Corvair. We were trying to use history to predict the future, but the future is always somehow different in some key way. I think Mr. O'Reilly is making the same mistake.

Re:So where's the 'Killer App'?

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'd go for something that looks interesting but is not too reliable. A good example are the older model Citroën cars: very popular, at least in Europe. They've always been innovators (they made the first front wheel drive for example), they look unusual, but overall they are rather unreliable, mostly due to being overengineered. Already it's hard to find decently-running older models and there will always be a large market: every self-respecting architect wants a Citroën. Shame their recent models have been Japanized: they look boring and are very reliable. Yawn.

Anyway, back to the topic. Indeed, wireless is not a killer app... what you need is a killer app that will make wireless something that everybody'll want. Same mistake that the phone companies made with WAP and I-mode. These things are only interesting because of the services they can provide, and so far the telcos have failed to come up with a killer app for these protocols. Even the popular apps from Japan that have been made available here have failed to strike an interest in I-mode with the general public.

Therefore my prediction is that ubiquitous wireless will not come into being before someone discovers the killer app that is 'killer' because it is wireless. (Disclaimer: if and when wireless becomes the cheaper solution to deliver net access to the masses, I will withdraw my prediction).

Maybe for normal users, but

[Anonymous Coward]

the real innovation occuring in the industry - at least right now - is in the data mining field...

I am so tired

[apierson]

of hearing Tim O'Reilly's monologues. The most annoying thing about them is how he's been verbally sex0ring amazon for the last few YEARS. Stick to running your company, Tim--there are plenty of other people in the world who can write musings about amazon if they want.

Re:Online Gaming communities

[tprox]

I agree. Tim seems to be lagging behind. As far as games go, with Everquest and Half-Life, the new games to come out need to have something different than the tried-and-true formulas already out there.

It seems that people who want to play games online already are.

For each of those examples, I'm sure you can find multiple examples of the same thing and glaring "WTF's": Amazon front ends downloadable for free? Isn't that basically what Slashcode and a number of other things are? Oh wait, they're not associated with Amazon. Ubiquitous Wireless Networking? Nice for infrastructure, but IMO hardly a killer app. Oh, and don't get me started on the "Alpha Geeks Hardware Hack into the Security of the System".

WTF?!

Re:MUSIC IS THE NEXT KILLER APP

[stak]

I agree. Downloading music off the internet drives computer sales, high speed internet services, portable music players, car stereos that can play MP3s, CDR & DVDR burners, and blank media sales.

The 10 CDs that I use to buy a year for $140 have been replaced by $40 a month internet service, a $1500 3 year computer replacment cycle, spindles of CDR, and a $600 Pioneer car stereo to listen to my MP3 collection.

I think in the future music will be given away to drive sales of more expensive products. Just like TV shows. Companies give the content away but you still have to buy a $300 box to view it.

HyperCard-OS

[RobotWisdom]

I'm still hoping someone will re-think HyperCard as an Internet-optimised operating system, with integrated scriptable modules for creating and viewing webpages, images, email, multimedia, etc.

If it runs as slick as HyperCard, it should become the new basic minimum of computer-literacy, so a creative community would inevitably grow up around it.

Build it on top of Linux and offer it for Internet Appliances, and it could put Microsoft out of business. But wireless and web-services and multiplayer gaming don't seem central to me, at all.

I say

[djupedal]

...the next true killer app is one I've been waiting for, for some time now.

Micro-payments!

my pick

[oliverthered]

Broadband + VOIP that can connect to other phone networks.

In car entertainment, based on a PC with 802.11b (download from the house) that plays mp3's with something like GDAM for real time, hands free mixing.

Better Gnutella/Kazaa that allows things like downloading from people with only part of the file.

And finially, a fully modular UI. so that when I install libjpeg and libogg on my PC, anything that can provide a bitmap makes use of libjpeg and anything that can provide a RIFF file makes use of ogg.

Emergency Telecommuting

[Arch_dude]

There has been a noticable increase in broadband usage in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Toronto, as quarantined or frightened tech workers stay at home and telecommute. SARS, the next killer app.

Re:Distributed P2P Services...

[JR]

Just with a quick browsing through the list of responses, I think that this suggestion stands out as both well thought-out and has a reasonable hope of being accurate.

Napster's explosive growth was the first sign that P2P apps had the potential to be a killer app. The wide perception is that the P2P music swapping apps are driving the uptake of broadband usage in the US and elsewhere. Even with their somewhat difficult interfaces and limited success of searches, the current P2P apps are wildly popular.

Right now, BitTorrent is the domain of geeks (and thus fits neatly among Tim O'Reilly's criteria), but the benefits can be quickly explained to the layman.

Like your speculated Torrent browser plugin, the Freenet project distributes content based on demand and matches the distribution to the bandwidth. Another step along the way.

Re: Micro-payments? Never worked. Never will.

[Corvus9]

Micropayments is one of those technologies, like rocket backpacks, that techno-nerds keep promoting but which never show up, and for the same reason. They're not practical.

The Teledon project back in the 1970s used micro-payments, and failed. Project Xanadu was going to be financed by micropayments and failed. Nicholas Negroponte predicted that micropayments would finance the WWW. First Virtual founded an internet bank based on micropayments and went bankrupt.

The problem is that the cost of administering any micro-payment scheme overwhelms the value of the service provided; all the money goes to the payment administrator and comparatively little goes to the content provider. Content providers hate them.

Users hate them too. They add another layer of cost and complexity to internet transactions. Users prefer to pay one bill each month, or whatever, and download whatever they want without having to keep track of every individual piece. Micropayments break that.

They don't even work for the service providers. Now they have to account for every individual service they provide. How much do they charge for this message? For a page? For an image? What if the user browses without loading images? What if they only read half the page and demand a refund for the half they didn't read?

Ignoring all the problems with micropayments, it doesn't even provide any solutions. Will it stop piracy? No. Will it bring back the glory days of the Internet bubble? No. Will it provide services that users want they didn't have before? No.

Micropayments have all kinds of problems and offer no benefits, except to techo-cheerleaders who imagine themselves getting paid for content no one is willing to spend money on.