The web is an operating system and a meta-languages are now appearing to take advantage of that. Most of us can remember command line interaction with our PCs – c:\copy *.* a:
That sort of simple structure is happening online. For example, you can Google any definition by entering "define:[enter term]" into the Google search bar. Yahoo! and Microsoft aren’t entering the desktop search arena because they want to help you find files on your PC -- although Google may now do it better than Microsoft – but rather because by providing an entry into the largest operating system in the world -- the Internet -- they can give consumers value from the colossal associative scale of the Web.
This development is abetted by the first consumer machine language development to hit it big: syndication. Readers of “We the Media” will recognize this as old news, but syndication turns the table on news organizations in ways they’re only now beginning to realize. CBS fell victim to citizen journalists by doggedly backing bogus reporting for 12 days before acknowledging what everyone else seemed to know. They’d been had. Jay Rosen over at Pressthink documents these changes in his industry.
The age of privileged information is coming to a rapid close. The value-add is in good argumentation, principle and context. “Information” by itself is worthless. This is another reason why web logs are so popular. Large stand-alone applications recycling information lose value unless the data set is proprietary and locked down .
Technorati has released API (conditions for making its code work with yours). It also hosted a contest for coders, who created a number of interesting bits of software. Again, this is a struggle to provide components of an emerging operating system. Google is in a position to do this, whether they realize it or not.
GovTrack won the contest. It works with Technorati to track conversations. On the GovTrack site, the developer has also created space for other web loggers to add their discussions about legislation merely by registering their web logs with GovTrack. Going forward, any legislation that mentions a bill number or name will automatically syndicate that information to GovTrack.
Taylor’s X-prize for government article was very good. I hear those same discussions. Government is broken. Hierarchical organizations don’t manage work flow, they slow and contort it. While the recognized work gets – or doesn’t get – done, other communications channels are buzzing. State government will have to sooner or later push some work in that direction, which will be a tipping point towards efficiency. Better government is a reality hamstrung by bureaucratic structures today. Tomorrow, new structures will take their place.
Finally – yes there is an end to this – Apple’s Mini-Mac will succeed because computer peripherals are easy to find and inexpensive. It correctly understands one of the key lessons of digital lives – complete “solutions” are in the eye of the beholder. Longhorn, Microsoft’s oft-delayed operating system promises a lot. But the functionality – search, for example – is being delivered today. Thanks to the continual downward price pressure on components and the development of key technologies like the browser, universal serial buses and WiFi, consumers can mix and match their network. The computer is simply a network of parts whose functionality is being parceled out. I suspect that Microsoft will see its “kitchen sink” software strategy lose ground to more modular software operating at least in part exclusively on the Web.
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