Slashdot Mirror
The Next Big Thing — Why Web 2.0 Isn't Enough
An anonymous reader writes "TechConsumer has an interesting discussion about what it will take for the next big thing, and why Web 2.0 is only just the beginning. 'Realtors have been giving us the answer for years, although they didn't know it. The next big thing is..."location, location, location". Think of how we access all the information of the Internet. We do it at a desk, where wires keep us attached to a specific location. Laptops help us branch out a bit, but even then we are tied to a wireless connection. Go to far and you no longer have access to information.'"
"If I'm driving down a dirt road, I can access the Internet, enter in the key words, "eat, roast beef sandwich'. The next time I pass within 5 miles of an Arby's my device let's me know."
So will it be giving you directions or providing a warning?
Yea this will be the next big thing. The problem is that you will get directions to Arby's but you will not get directions to Bill's deli. You know that little hole in the wall where they bake their own rolls and use real roast beef?
Yea the next big thing in advertising.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Until I get telecommuting, I don't really care for this new technology. The problem isn't "location, location, location". It's that I have to be places where I don't want to be.
I guess I don't really get Web 2.0 then.
That's because it's a buzzword, implying much and meaning little. It's all about Dynamic HTML! No! It's all about centralized data! No! It's all about distributed services!
It's all just a little bit of what the web's been since 1998, only we're getting better at it, so people have to make it into something to puff out their vita, and make them "marketable," even though they were part of the reason we had the other buzzword, the "dot-com bubble."
IT marketers do love their buzzwords.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
And I have little sympathy for people who are too lazy to spell words correctly. It's a symptom of a bigger problem that starts with our failed educational system. It's time to enact a zero-tolerance attitude towards spelling errors. Forgive the first one gently; relentlessly mock all errors after that. It's not that hard to have a little rigor in the use of a language.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
I think the author of this piece overestimates how much time people spend touring. Sure, this could be handy in the few situations you're in a new place hunting for something new, but people don't spend a lot of time doing that. On the other hand, looking at the other two revolutions listed by the author, people need to find things on the internet all the time, and socializing is a daily thing. You could build a neat digital location tagging game, à la electronic geocaching, but I doubt it'd be long before it was polluted with idiots and spam. And how long can people play hide-and-seek? Sure, there are certainly niche applications, but I doubt it'll be the Next Big Thing.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
A Google search was less than helpful. Can you provide more information about CityPoint? I have not seen any TeleAtlas cars in my city (Charlottesville, Virginia), and I suspect there might not be any near Bill's Deli, either. :)
There's good hope that the solution you suggest will work great for Charlottesville (college town full of tech-savvy people), but I don't know how well it will work for Bill's Deli in more rural areas. Eventually, perhaps, but I don't see it happening soon.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
FTA: Think of the last time you were at a national park. It's a very good possibility that the only information you had about the park fit on a tri-fold paper that you picked up at the visitor's station. In the information age, how is this acceptable?
It's more than just acceptable. It's exactly what I want when I go to a national park: to get away from the hyper-connected world of technology. The only information I want I will get from the park ranger, who hopefully can't tell his DVD-ROM from his Firewire, but can answer my questions about lizards and rocks.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Grow up? I'm a rich fellow, retired at 38, with millions in the bank. I'm disciplined, and a good speller too. It matters not if you or anyone else accepts my complaining, because bad spelling is it's own punishment.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
I was with you up to that point. A nationwide 802.11x mesh is neither economically nor technically feasible. 802.11x is good for what it's currently used for, and not much more. In reality, something higher power and longer range is necessary -- like existing cell networks, and/or WiMAX.
It took hundreds of APs for google to cover the town of Mountain View, CA (population: 70,000). Oh, and you're capped at 1 megbit/sec up/down
Google's proposal to cover SF in a similar fasion is slated to provide only 300 k/sec speeds to free users, and 1 megabit/sec to those paying $22/month; At those prices, DSL is almost certainly a better option. Given the numbers on the page, google expects to use as many as 1500 APs to cover San Francisco, an incredibly compact city with an area of only 47 square miles (which it's probably safe to assume this project would only cover some of)
Even generously assuming that 1,500 802.11g APs can cover all of San Francisco's 47 square miles, that's still 32 APs per square mile. At that rate, covering the city of Los Angeles would take roughly 20,000 APs, and covering Los Angeles County would take 150,000. And while you may deem that somewhat practical, applying the same treatment to the rural US (which, coincidentally, makes up *most* of the country, by area) is far less practical -- covering the state of Wyoming would require 6 APs for every resident!
Covering the country's densest cities in 802.11g APs is just barely practical. Covering the entire nation is laughable.