re: Re: UKNM: The next stage in the game - ?????

[Ben Scott-Robinson]

The point wasn't that these technologies would eclipse what is available now, but augment it, 

to bring it into the hands of people who wouldn't buy a computer in the first place, however 

easy they are to use. This, I believe, is a fairly large group of people (no figures, 

unfortunately). 


These people are far more accessible through terrestrial/satellite/cable TV, for example than 

through the standard sources net-ready technology, and would be more trusting of a remote 

bill paying service to a utility through the trusty telly than through 'the open internet' (that 

famous tabloid mire of hackers, pornographers and wicked direct marketing people), where 

one of the biggest issues stopping everybody buying everything online is STILL trust in the 

medium. 


The convergence of media is something hinted at in the talk of ADSL access (allowing the 

potential for permanent streaming...? video, possibly?), in other forms highspeed access via 

electricity lines/wireless systems/cable TV lines etc, in the talk of gaming consoles going 

online, in the development by ALL TV networks (terrestrial, cable and satellite) of interactive 

content, in the ability to watch high quality fullscreen DVD videos from a laptop, in the 

possibility to by a TV tuner card for your computer.


They are pointing to a meeting that allows the boundaries to be blurred to the point where it 

doesn't matter on what type of hardware you watch TV, source information, do your 

shopping, pay your bills, and check your bank statement. It could be the TV, computer, 

phone, genetic implant etc etc... For example, that same Amazon site that can be viewed and 

used on a Netscape 1 browser can now also be accessed from a mobile phone, and that 

phone can be bought directly from your TV, and that TV can be bought online. It's not a 

revolution, it's the continuation of development, technical, business, and social, that started 

(pretty much) with Mosaic, and continues apace.


Nobody is denying that the internet will continue to flourish, but the interactivity inherent in the 

http protocol, that has caused all the interest in the first place, can be - and is being on a 

massive scale - applied to be used in other forms of communication hardware. We have to 

be ready for the possibilities and limitations these new forms apply on us. If PS2, for 

example, uses a vaguely different browser for net access (like the Liberate browser for cable 

TV, for example) than the ones currently available/being used, the makers of a games site will 

have to develop for it. If people access a banking website from the TV without a mouse, 

using arrow keys and 'forward/back' buttons, that site has to be developed for that. It will all 

require altered attitudes in ergonomics, design, developing, and, of course, marketing.


I feel we can only go so far with the hardware now being generally used. Clumpy grey boxes 

(new Macs aside, obviously) with intimidating unintuitive interfaces will never reach my retired 

aunt. Digital TV will. My aunt has spare time, and money to spend.


ben


> ** Original Subject: Re: UKNM: The next stage in the game - ?????

>

** Original Sender: Clay Shirky <clayshirky [dot] com>

> ** Original Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 14:43:53 -0400 (EDT)


> ** Original Message follows... 


>

> > How many people are now clued up on WAP, Open, Liberate et al? How

> > many people will be playing catchup in a year/month/week's time?

> 

> No one.

> 

> No one will be playing catchup in a week or a month or a year.

> 

> We have been seeing, since 1995, company after company -- AOL,

> Marimba, Microsoft, @home, et al. -- announce that the Next Big Thing

> was coming, and that everybody who was using those boring old browsers

> and that boring old HTML was going to be playing catch up when their

> shiny new proprietary technology replaced all these silly open

> standards.

> 

> It never happened, and its not going to happen any time soon. DHTML

> has not revolutionized the world, there's 10 times more Java on the

> server than the client, MSN did not eclipse AOL, and AOL itself

> reengineered to be less an online service than an fancy ISP, and guess

> what? I can *still* buy books on amazon using Netscape 1.22.

> 

> The technological revolution has already happened - it took place in

> 1994, with the public release of Mosaic 0.97. The revolution thats

> happening now is an economic revolution, but not a technological one.

> New devices must be designed to interoperate with the Web *as it

> esists today*, or they will die -- Open is doomed for this very reason

> -- since anyone who already interoperates with the web inherits a vast

> and expanding landscape, whereas anyone who announces new standards

> and new content creation tools will never acquire enough developers to

> make a dent in the existing infrastructure.

> 

> -clay


When the going gets weird,

The weird turn pro.


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