http://gautham.maediratta.com

Sometime back i was asked about what I would my ideal environment would be, and my answer was relatively simple…IPv6 connectivity, a WiMax card on my tablet and a Web2.0 Life Management System running on maediratta.com.

I didn’t stop there (check the post titled 2019 for the abridged version) but the rest was more wishlist and not what i’d need to be seamlessly integrated with my online oxygen.

For the blissfully ignorant, IPv6 is short for “Internet Protocol version 6”. A replacement for the aging IPv4, which was released in the early 80s, IPv6 will exponentially increase the number of available Internet addresses or IPs (from 32 to 128 bits) and consequently the number of devices attached to the Internet. It would serve as a base for data delivery from everything from telecom to television. There are a host of resources which talk about the benefits and features of IPv6, some of which can be found here and here!

Combine IPv6 with Wimax/WiFi, the growth of embedded systems and AI and you find yourself in wireless paradise where all your devices i.e. car, fridge, camera, phone, tablet, TV talk to each other! Sound like sci-fi fiction? Opera already has a dedicated division which builds internet browsers for devices! Still sound like Star Wars? Before i give you a host of other reasons about why its not, i’ll give you some background on where the web is headed and the concepts behind Web 2.0.

To quote wikipedia “Web 2.0 is a term popularized by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International as the name for a series of web development conferences that started in October 2004. It has since come to refer to what some people describe as a second phase of architecture and application development for the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax (1998), and web syndication (1997).“

This IBM Page (courtesy De) is a great resource for developers.

To put it simply, the next wave is server based & collaborative computing, limitless bandwidth and seamless connectivity. Any analysis of M&A activity by Internet heavyweights will give you a good idea about Web 2.0 products and why they’re where any netrepreneur needs to be focussing his attention. There is already a long list of products from companies like 37signals, Salesforce.com, Trumba, Adventnet (Zoho) which deal with life management systems ranging from CRM to online collaboration. Flickr & Live.com are Web 2.0 products that need no introduction.

A peek at Google’s portfolio of products and services and Google’s acquisitions all point in one direction – Owning the Web 2.0 platform. Microsoft is what it is because it owns the PC platform. And that’s just what Google has aimed to do.

Yahoo! isn’t a stranger to 2.0 either, the new Yahoo! Mail, Live Words and Widgets are all 2.0 products. In addition to that, their acquisitions include Oddpost, Flickr & del.icio.us

While it’s easy to lose yourself admiring Google, you could very easily lost sight of Microsoft and be fooled into believing that they’re not very active on the 2.0 front. Ever wonder why the rumoured MS acquiring Macromedia didn’t work out? Maybe, for Vista to be a success, it had to be more nimble. A little digging into MS Investments & Acquisitions throws light on my humble 2cent theory. Sharepoint, Windows/Office Live, Origami, Windows Mobile 5.0 are not just concepts! MS publicly can now be in every room of the house & Windows has long been associated with BMW. Origami is WiFi enabled, it does have a tablet version of XP running on it (and should be able to run Vista). There are no limitations on the browser, the connectivity, the OS. Whats there to stop them?

It’s hard to imagine that something as big and wide as the Internet, can evolve so fast! While i still haven’t been able to identify any opportunities that the Semantic Web will present, i’m sure i’d be just as amazed, just as curious and just as ignorant as i am now.

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