Web 2.0 Needs to Get Physical
April 19, 2007
Those of us in software development effectively live in front of our computers. In turn, we design software to make it easier to interact using only a computer. In that process, we forget that most of the world runs on offline services and processes.
Most of these are shockingly inefficient.
The tools, methods, and patterns we’ve developed while building the structure of the web ecosystem could be an immense service to these areas. But, in order to apply these patterns, we need interfaces. Links to physical production tools, sensors, and physical tracking systems.
This is a hard task. It blends together skills in a number of areas and requires that companies be able to work across those boundaries seamlessly.
The benefit is that it allows the world of physical products and interactions to gain the richness of customization and efficiencies of the online realm.
We’re seeing early versions of this. Our own business is obviously an application of these principles. Various online fabrication shops are another early example. But all of this is in its infancy. While at Web 2.0 Expo this week, I was struck by how much of what’s going on seems designed to further wrap up the web into its own isolated space.
We need to start looking outward. Not just thinking about how we can pull tasks into the machine, but how we can change tasks by creating new interfaces for the outside world. The combination of machine intelligence and human collaboration has defined the best of what Web 2.0 tries to be (with “undercapitalized” and “founded after 2004″ defining much of the reality of the term’s use). We can extend that far beyond the web.
As we grow used to the speed and flexibility of web tools, old systems seem increasingly intolerable. That creates both challenges and opportunities.
The chance is open to start providing solutions to those challenges. Each interface that we create makes it easier for the next one. Each new physical process that is brought into the computational cloud opens up others that can be incorporated. We’re just at the start of this, but the process, once begun, is just going to keep accelerating from here.
April 29, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I have been obsessed with system efficiency since I was a kid. It has always shocked me when people tolerate their inefficient systems. At first I thought that they just didn’t see the possibilities for improvement, and that if I just pointed those opportunities out that people would become excited and implement conversions. Over a lifetime of trying to help people by suggesting system improvements, I have come to realize how scared many people are of change. The momentary inconvenience of changing the system and altering work-flow is not worth the trade-off for long term increased efficiency for a surprisingly large number of individuals. Web 2.0 could be the tipping point. Dead simple intuitive interfaces that do not require a conversion to a digital lifestyle, the learning of any new skills, or the uptake of a philosophical concept are exactly what the masses need. Change has to be effortless for it to spread across the digital divide.
April 30, 2007 at 8:11 pm
I think the largest problem in terms of moving these systems to more efficient versions is the informational cost of determining risk. The actual cost of moving to a new system _if you knew it was better_ is insignificant. But, usually there is uncertainty as to which change would actually provide an improvement. The costs of reducing that uncertainty can be high.
This is where Web 2.0 methods excel. The costs of testing and trial are extremely low. Integrating is a matter of a few minutes of testing rather than a few weeks of committees hammering out protocols. As more and more services demonstrate this, we’ll start to see accelerating adoption of better methods (I hope).