Technology Takes - WWW & Internet (Take 1)

This post is the first of a 2 part post. I will touch base with historical developments that pushed the internet to become what it is now. I will also, in the second part of this post, expound in detail about technologies that I think will power the evolution of the internet for the next 5-10 years.

The WWW and Internet have metamorphosed in countless ways since the invention of the concept of networking in 1969 at ARPA , development of the first TCP/IP specification at Stanford in 1973-74, adoption of TCP/IP by the US Department of Defence as standard for military networking in 1983 and the invention of the web by Tim Berners Lee at CERN in 1990. The internet has certainly created a border less world, becoming ubiquitous in and radically transforming the way we lead our lives. What is incredible about the evolution of the internet is that this evolution is linked to and is the result of the invention of newer technologies.

The invention of Mosaic, a graphical web browser, released in 1993 propelled the internet to definite glory. Most popular browsers today retain the primary features of Mosaic. This was the beginning of a revolution because browsers in the early 90's were still text based. Mosaic was entirely different because it was based on point and click functionality.

Then in 1995, the invention of WebCrawler, a search engine that could search web content. Before WebCrawler, only web page titles could be searched. Lycos, which also offered web content seach also was introduced the same year and achieved critical business success.
Search was big business, and was ruled by Yahoo until 1998 when big daddy Google entered into the fray with a search engine powered by PageRank and started selling search ads (Google CEO Eric Schmidt estimates the size of this business in the next five-ten years to run into billions of dollars) in 2000.

The web in the end of 90's became the pretty much the in thing and made a lot of commercial sense. A lot of applications were built, and email became pretty ubiquitous. Businesses invested in the web, starting with a bang and a frenzy and ending with the 2001 dot com bust. This I think pretty much sums up what is known as Web 1.0.

Collective failure in any industry always results in critical introspection. The from the shadow of this failure emerges light and a newer outlook of things. The dot com bust in 2001 changed the internet in a number of ways. The most important was the emergence of new technology (or existing technology applied in newer ways). And so descended upon us thus the wisdom of crowds, or as I like to think - "From Collective failure arose Collective intelligence". Enter the Web 2.0.

RSS, AJAX, CSS, SOAP, REST, XML, PHP and Cloud Computing. These together, with other newer technologies make the new web extremely different, from a technical perspective in 3 ways - Rich Internet applications, web syndication and web services. I am sure non of this makes any sense :-). The point I am making here is that these allow you as an end user to do the following -
1. Experience applications like GoogleMaps, Orkut and Facebook
2. Actively distribute content that you put on the web to people who want to access it.
3. To socialize and network on the internet, exchanging information and ideas in ways never possible before.

Such collective efforts result in applications like Wikipedia and characterize Web 2.0. The web becomes a platform in its current avatar. Being a platform, Web 2.0 applications engage users and transform them into co-developers. Web 2.0 applications also become more rich in terms of the functionality they offer when more people use it. In effect, a Web 2.0 application is the result of the collective intelligence of the crowd.

Then there is also the phenomenon of virtual worlds like Second Life on the internet. The underlying concept is not new. The availability of cheap bandwidth which is only going to get cheaper, and advances in graphics and processor technology are making this possible. More on this in Take 2 of this topic.

Technology Takes- Web 2.0

Recently I came across a question that I found very interesting. The question was how can Indian technology companies help their clients to derive business potential out of Web 2.0 technology.

You are looking at an example of a Web 2.0 technology right now - yes, a blog is an example of Web 2.0 technology. Orkut, Face Book, Meebo, Wikipedia, Twitter, Flikr, Youtube are other examples. Now what is so interesting about Web 2.0 ? For a minute, think what is common to all of the examples above. Aha, you got it. In all of the above applications, a lot of people do a lot of things. People share stuff, give and take advice, communicate and network. I google for information and probably find what I am looking for in the blog of a guy sitting in Africa.

Web 2.0 has fundamentally changed 2 thing about the web -
1. Huge social communities are being created.
2. People are interacting with each other in newer ways.

I think that Enterprise customers will perceive maximum value from Web 2.0 technology that will enable the following -

1. Reaching out to consumer communities for (a) maintaining credible information channels, maintaining/ expanding competitive position and customer base and selling new services (b) engaging in meaningful two way dialogue to receive feedback and detemine consumer perceptions and new ideas.

2. Effectively engage with business partners and suppliers to improve communication.

3. Capitalize on the inherent potential of social communities to foster information and knowledge exchange, collaboration and networking to drive product design and development within shorter time scales.

We need to articulate propositions that can resonate at highest executive decision making levels of our clients. Such a proposition must alleviate business concerns, must clearly be aligned to the client's business strategy and must also offer economic and competitive advantages over any other non Web 2.0 alternatives.

Technology Takes - Collaboration in a Color Palate

At an online forum at work, one that I regularly checkout, there was a post on lines similar to Technology usability Vs Customer experience". I found it a very pertinent question, especially in the context of the IT industry.

My take on this (I have already blogged about it before) is that -

I think that usability, although very important is only one component of a great customer experience. I strongly believe that a great customer experience is something that must be ingrained in the genetic DNA of Indian technology companies, affecting and consistently displayed in its value propositions and its fundamental thought processes. It is a sad fact that the true concept of a great customer experience is largely misunderstood and is mostly unidirectional in perspective even in the largest technology companies in India.

I think the key enabler to a great customer experience is collaboration. The biggest question in collaboration is who should be collaborating with whom and to what end ? The answer to this that collaboration yields unparalleled results only if it allows for participation and contribution from every entity in the ecosystem. The end is a self sustaining, truly innovative and hugely rewarding win-win result that every entity from the ecosystem can derive value from. And not to mention great customer experience because each entity in the ecosystem is a customer of the other entities.

I have a vision of IT industry evolving from a service provider model to a collaborative consulting model in the years to come.

(PS- My opinions are my own, and in no way reflect the opinions/statements of the company I work for or my clients).