The Future, Next Year
Xcerion have developed an interesting product: A platform for developing and serving applications via web browsers. They themselves call it an 'Internet Operating System', though that is not really the case, it is basically the most advanced JavaScript/AJAX application available today.
What's so great about this? Well for starters they have a very interesting developer suite with stuff like transactions to allow multiple users work on the same document at the same time and even que instructions sent to the server if the network goes down. That's not it, no matter how cool that part is.
What strikes me as the great impact this will have on the web is the fusion of the static content: Text, data, images, semantic markup â everything the web is about today, with the dynamic possibilities a new generation of networked applications to take advantage of the content online.
This might mean that companies no longer need to separate their collaboration, email and office systems but can combine them and streamline the experience for both the end users and the people responsible for the information architecture at the company. Or this might renew the role of the journalist that will no longer report so much short stories on single events but rater help aggregate new information as events unfold, use blogs, communicate more with people. As in the words of Dan Gillmor: The audience has a role to play in the future of journalism
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The web will clearly be about content and what to do with it.
