web3 medium - myAvatar myLife

web3... continued

______________________

what next?

Just how is my Web3 vision going to take root in a space where, as I said before: anything more complex than a light switch is out and so many “game changing” venture claims fail? The answer is simple – we are already half way there and I'm just gauging an existing trend.

Clear signs exist that a more personalised and bespoke future of Social Web is near. An aesthetically richer medium capturing style, creativity and the compulsion to express more than in-your-face comments and slapstick pics. Apparently, the fastest growing SW network at the moment is SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com/). It is just like the original MySpace on steroids - encouraging users to record or create music and sound, share it with the world, building communities in the process.

______________________

have a look at this; but I can't be bothered sorry

Since I believe that an underlying desire for richer profiles exists, will SoundCloud be a killer app? I don't think so, the narrow-band interest communities are old hat now – nerds calling out ad nauseam “have a look at this” will never make a social scene. That's been tried to death and represents nothing more than Flicker or YouTube for sound – not a community but simply a space to dump stuff. Most likely it will be a nice gadget popping up on a wall of every budding DJ in your crowd. Another reason for SoundCloud to fail is the lack of technical prowess. For one, I've never experienced a run without a number of errors popping up, but more importantly the user experience is just so poor e.g. the sound cuts out as you browse – surely it could play on until you select another track.

Frankly, Facebook's “listen and watch what your friends are doing” is likely to have more grip once the initial flood of outcry from users reluctant to accept new features and changes dies down. The recently introduced timeline, on the other hand could prove to be a dud, even if it enhances the means for sharing one's life with “friends”. It smacks of the tedious – look at my snaps from the holiday, when we tend to yawn looking for a way out. The point I'm trying to make is that push is out and pull is in, a voyeuristic peek at your friends is OK, but slide nights faded to obscurity very long ago. There is a fine line somewhere between “jack ass” videos or one's intimacy exposed and the vain look at me calls.

______________________

my id (the antonym of ego)

The appeal of the secret or hidden side in all of us is constantly growing in the otherwise conformist world. The need to reveal it is parallel in every sense, even the public eye increasingly becomes a witness of the extremes. The disparity between the self and the mundane act we present everyday will collapse in time, but for now an outlet for the more extrovert facets needs to be found.

Few years ago I read a very instructive comment regarding SN identity: “we create a parody of ourselves on Facebook and before we know it we become it”. It resonated with me like a revelation, I was experiencing it in Second Life. Perhaps “parody” doesn't quite capture it and should be qualified by pointing at the need to make a joke of it, we simply can't face our fantasies easily. Fetishes or even quirks are not welcomed either, so perhaps the “joke” identity is often the only way to come out and reveal the other self.

This paradigm is far more obvious in Second Life - the concept of an avatar identity is a given and the meaning implied through it is widely accepted and readily understood. First time noobs seem perplexed, but soon someone tells them it isn't MSN and they would win more friends being a truck or a lizard then running around as a “boy next door” screaming “will someone cyber with me now?” I just didn't get SL until I made my first female avatar, I had plenty of opportunity to chat with people at the local pub in real life, so I'd seldom log just to be there (I started when I was studying it). Needles to say, before long my id (alter ego) became an obsession and the boundaries began to blur. In time I realised that I've recreated my identity against all the expectations of conformity in the world around me. However, I'll tell this anecdote in another post.

TBC

web3 – to be or what to be? that is the question

As years go by I ask myself: isn't it time to follow up on the essay I wrote back in 1996 - “the medium shapes the message”? Perhaps now that practically all of those speculations have been realised, finally the time has come. Incidentally I re-published it at the start of this blog.

In 2007 I came across a rhetoric posed by Richard Bartle “to be or what to be? that is the question” - since then it has been my sig line and an inspiration for all kinds of fantasies about the internet. It is only fair that I should consider this notion as a theme for contemplations on the future of the web.

Web3 is fast becoming the industry buzzword. The enabling technology is pretty much in place, all we need now is the next generation of killer applications. There are some good technical ideas talked about a lot, but technicalities rarely inspire more than Sci-Fi plots and this isn't what I intend. Without boring you to death, for the most part I'll attempt to adhere to the emotional aspects of what's to come.

______________________

technical future or failure – briefly

Obviously the most significant term we hear today is the “semantic web” and perhaps we may be finally ready to realise that rather old dream. Visionary technology always takes time. Ted Nelson proposed a very idealistic conception of hypertext (including the term) back in 1963, he was intuitive enough to call the project Xanadu. It is a very illusive goal - XML === semantic web and even earlier DKNF, also aimed to achieve the same thing with very little success. For those thinking of fashion, DKNF (Domain Key Normal Form) is a methodology described by C.J. Date in early 1970s prescribing the generation of uniform database entity keys across knowledge domains. Similarly to XML, the implementation of ubiquitous DKNF hasn't been achieved yet, even if some examples of “enterprise keys” (poor cousin of DKNF) and common XML tags adopted on industry-wide basis do exist.

Just like Artificial Intelligence, semantic web is a great promise, which encounters a brick wall upon any attempts to broadly generalise the rules. The problem of the representation of common-sense knowledge presents barriers which appear to elude practical approaches tried so far. Some philosophers point to the “embodied cognition” as a main reason for this difficulty. The constructs of knowledge and its representation are formed in relation to the human experience and our sense of the body. We have an intimate knowledge of the world around us, but capturing it gets ever harder the more generalised and universal this description is intended to be. In essence, as we tend towards the general, typologies and taxonomy replace attributes and a consensus about the significance of discrete entities becomes contentious in various domains of expertise.
Perhaps given a pragmatic approach, solutions of limited scope will be adopted and prove to be effective in providing some practical value for now. This outcome would be far from ideal, but more realistic considering the utopian nature of the problem. Other solutions could also eventuate in unanticipated ways, e.g. emerge from the chaos of user content tagging... we will see. If anyone is actually interested, I'm happy to help with knowledge engineering issues and elaborate further, but I don't wish to make this argument any more obscure or unapproachable now.

______________________

an intuitive prelude to the next web

Taxes and death are said to be the only certain future, but so is appetite once a taste for something new is experienced. Web2 or Social Web has given us the appetite, so we are ready for more and have some idea of what works and what is simply lame or just another 'me too' attempt at best. Web3, in my view, will be a stage when our avatar matures and gets a life beyond the juvenile bitching temperament so dominant online in the last few years.

Is that it? Just a few words: avatar, life and emotions. Yes and to the contrary, this is a huge ask. The future of the Web is you, me and our lives. Reality Mining is here and the companies behind it aren't likely to lose interest in developing the infrastructure and the services based on 'big' data. Web-cams, smart-phones, geolocation, real-time content, etc. may be good, but there is more to come and the next thing is very close even if it hasn't taken-off yet.

A vision of virtual identity is coming into being – avatar, emotional states, sense of presence, shared situations and experiences. These allures will inevitably continue to penetrate our existence in increasingly ubiquitous and pervasive ways enabling a sense of participation and the fuzzy rewards implied by such states. For now, the hardest part is describing a paradigm without suitable analogies or practical metaphors. Let me try without attempting to exhaust the possibilities.

Imagine presenting/communicating a scenario through a medium able to mush-up a real world representation with avatar performances derived from any given situation, all under your control. Another way to visualise this, might be a high fidelity fusion of Second Life avatars in a Google Earth Stree View context with sound, in a totally arbitrary collage of content from real and virtual space, performances and chronology of real-time or from a persistent store of past events.

I think there may be a few laughs in that, just like the incidentally recorded or intentionally set-up videos we watch on YouTube and it probably would constitute a great source of content to post there as well. Perhaps you have a few ideas too, feel free to comment.

______________________

simplicity rules

The greatest aspect of doubt in the above scenario is the notion that “easy” and “simple” always win on the Web and the more complex capabilities seem to die in the long run. The most common view regarding the success of Facebook over MySpace, previously the dominant SN platform, was the plain interface and limited possibilities in comparison with the open-ended style of the predecessor. This was largely true, in the days when blogs and MySpace pages were a new thing, both required a fair bit of creativity from the user. However, the great majority somewhat lacked in that respect and felt intimidated, even if it may have seemed that everyone was writing a blog or posting pictures and music tribute pages. In reality very few actually wrote anything and those people were strongly motivated by one thing – a chance to gain readers and ride the tide of wide media attention obsessed with the new phenomenon. Similarly, MySpace gave people a chance to have their own Web presence and an outlet for their aspirations and creativity.

When Facebook emerged, everyone got a chance to participate with very little effort and since the capabilities were so poor, nobody felt like a poor cousin to the more creative show-off crowd. The masses flooded in and at large it satisfied the need to share snapshots of their lives. Seven years on it is still growing, but we can't be deluded that a “wall” and few things added as time went by is the ultimate function set. Indeed, Google+ surprised me by providing such a blatant duplicate. Considering the earlier attempts to innovate the mediums (Gmail and Google Wave), I was naive enough to expect more. Popularity of Facebook is growing not so much because it is precisely what people want, but because the platform is so ubiquitous now that everyone else needs to join it just to post a comment on anything going on around them. Yet another factor is the age group spread, kiddies and the aged are getting in on the act too. What does it say about G+? We will see, but I doubt that many will switch. Perhaps it will have more impact on Linkedin than the target in its sight.

The Facebook login/membership/profile has a lot to offer as far as new SN possibilities are concerned and increasingly it is integrated into new portals, as well as allowing for external data to be imbued into its space via the apps API. These days, the prolific population and the extent of participation on Facebook constitutes a tempting proposition to plug into that crown instead of building a competing presence from scratch. Providing that the Facebook policy remains committed to this model and all intelligence suggests it isn't likely to be compromised if the anticipated company float is to ever get off the ground in a big way, there are a lot of possibilities for extending the FB virtual identity and profile in a number of ways.

______________________

virtual face-off

This is the most likely path towards a more complex participation model and additional capabilities being explored in an effective way. In the event that Google would succeed in wiping Facebook off the face of the Earth, the controversy of real name identity aside, the same if not broader opportunities would most likely exist. The vision of a next generation richer virtual identity is very likely to encompass all manner of entertainment forms our devices are and will be capable of. When SN, as we know it now, was born AJAX (Web2) technology was just a geek way to build dynamic content using HTTP request object in JavaScript, which didn't have a vernacular name. However, what proved to be the most significant step for Social Web and is about to become a lot more prominent, is not the technology, but identity. Ever seen anyone log-into iGoogle intentionally? Not very likely, it would be such a nerdy thing to do. Google struggles so hard to track and target user profiles and yet the opposite is true of FB and it is worth a lot more than my estimate, actually I better double it, perhaps double it every Christmas starting with 2011...

______________________

situated being and sharing

What sets this new Social Web apart is situatedness (yup most likely a new word 4u), the integrity of communication in the real world is approximately: 40% context, 40% emotions of body language and tone and only some 20% words. Current SN communication is devoid of the main cues we are so reliant on and the effect of this is obvious to anyone reading a “wall” or “stream” for the first time, even more obvious (by contrast) to the users of richer SN platforms like Second Life (SL). By no means am I suggesting Social Web could adopt SL or a similar platform, but the key aspects of situated social events and hangouts together with a richer sense of identity and individual style will inevitably penetrate our online and real life space.

My own experience of being Charlette Proto in an experiment lasting a few years of a 24/7 virtual life in SL is by all means an extreme example. However, it provided me with a lot more than the metaphors and analogies to visualise some of the likely aspects of a future social life and a heightened expectation of SN at large. Above all, it illustrated just how rich a virtually situated life can be and a possible explanation of how the naff angst and all this frustrated bietchin of today's SN is born out of the struggle to squeeze more of our life between the lines.

TBC

creativity in brainstorming scenarios

Fundamentally, the situation is that of a small team engaged in the process of problem solving in a commercial setting.

Brainstorming is an approach to collaborative idea generation. Its proponents emphasise the benefits of high levels in novelty, quantity, diversity, unusualness and imaginativeness of the identified solutions. (Finke and Bettle 1996)

The term “brainstorming” and its methodology were introduced by Alex Osborn in 1956. It is defined as a set of objectives, which a small team (ideally seven people or less) should observe as they take turns in a loosely organised and casual in nature meeting. These are: Defer judgement. Encourage wild ideas. Build on the ideas of others. Go for quantity. One conversation at a time. Be visual. The last two guidelines have in time been appended to Osborn's concept and countless other variations have been proposed since, including an anonymised computer based version, but these are beyond the intended scope of this post.

If you are not convinced you aren't alone and parodies aside, I'll attempt to outline some of the criticisms of brainstorming with a notion of “harnessing” the intended benefits of crowd based creative power through a conscious realisation of its likely pitfalls.

______________________

no such thing as bad ideas?

The main objective of brainstorming is the generation of multiple ideas in an unstructured manner looking at problems from different perspectives and allowing possible solutions to emerge in a natural and unconstrained way. However, typically it is employed to solve particular problems, rather than a means of exploring new possibilities. Additionally, as a result of conformance it tends to result in “groupthink”, which all too often, leads to adoption of low value, impractical or unrealistic solutions. (Finke and Bettle 1996)

The assumed openness to elicit untested ideas and explore a wide range of possibilities is implied by the prescribed freedom from critical comments and evaluation. In my opinion, this can be a weakness in the process. In brainstorm speak this is called: a “no bad ideas” environment. The rationale behind this prescription is: that there isn't a greater killer of invention than comments like “that won't scale” from one's peers. (Bernard and Summers 2010) Perhaps remarks like “that won't scale” should be acknowledged by all parties as a contextual fact in the consideration of the proposed idea. Terminating the exploration due to a single constraint would be premature, but I hate the thought that the above mentioned vocal person would be later assigned to deliver the execution of the flawed concept against her or his judgement, simply because the team committed to develop it further without hearing their expert opinion.

This guideline (defer judgement) is most commonly broken in real life and I may be encouraging it further, but being exposed to or rather supported by the breadth of a collective team expertise, is a well recognised strength in collaboration.

______________________

everyone can be creative

The assumption is that; given the right environment, an incubator with all the right conditions to stimulate ideation and making it fun - props, toys, drinks and snacks, a clearly stated free from constraints attitude - “no bad ideas”, a means to capture the ideas - whiteboard, pens and paper, cameras, voice recording etc., when every member in the group shares their inspirations given an equal chance, an invention is likely to emerge spontaneously. This idealistic view is widely accepted, but is it a realistic and reliable path to generate creative work?

Going by my experience, I can only say: sometimes and not very often. As an exclusive approach it simply represents a try-hard design utopia, if not a means to undermine the importance of roles traditionally defined as creative. After all, not everyone fixes their own car or builds their dream kitchens hands-on. Skills are a combination of both, the learnt technique and an inherent intuition we have for the subject of work we pursue, hence the expectations placed on brainstorming may actually be somewhat naive.

First, a number of personality issues quite at odds with brainstorming need to be considered; Pulling raw ideas out of one's head and expressing them for the benefit of the team might encounter some barriers, after all not everyone is an extrovert. Then we need to think outside of the box, when most people feel more comfortable with low risk regular routines. And finally, the sudden impulse/flash of creative insight is recognised as strongly associated with intrinsic motivation, which by definition is the opposite of the more common extrinsic motivation based on set goals, scores/gains and the recognition of value by others.

Further, we have the issues of productivity and tangible value outcomes, which need to be addressed. If the un-primed ideas actually flow, will other members of the team really be challenged to take ownership of the implied potential of this creativity or simply idle awaiting their turn or worse - freeze with apprehension of their own defeat. Rather than perceiving it as an opportunity to express their own ideas and views, many people feel quite confronted by the notion of addressing their peers. The 'productivity loss' relative to working individually, is well documented by various studies; evaluation apprehension despite the prescribed rule, social loafing as a result of shared responsibility and limitations of short-term memory resulting in forgetting one's inspirations while others express their own - to name just a few. (Finke et al 1992) The evidence of cop-out contributions by employees expected to come up with individual pursuits towards the common good is abundant and YouTube is a great beneficiary of those.

There is more, just look at various cultural values ingrained through education and life experience at large. For example, Confucius philosophy with deep influence on the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese cultures, fosters hierarchies of mastery and a great regard for traditions, the past and its wisdom. This has a profound impact on the individuals' concept of professional practice, knowledge and its masters entrusted with responsibilities. In many ways, these principles are at odds with the notion of informally guessing or stumbling upon solutions, which brainstorming embraces at its core. Of course this doesn't stop Asian people from being good brain-stormers, but it certainly undermines the sense of respect and trust in the adopted results.

______________________

can we fix it and should we try to?

Apart from providing an aspect of fun at work, brainstorming gives us a personal voice. At a time when social culture at large strays further and further from stereotypes, the work environment suffers from a 'job hat' syndrome and the hat appears to be worn ever tighter. Therefore a personal voice is an increasingly important asset, a forum with an attentive audience is valuable in terms of feeling involved, empowered and responsible for reaching high level objectives.

Above all, brainstorming offers a means to suspend the routine approach to tasks and one's reliance on expert insight and instead, act in a freer or fresher manner. This indeed, is where we may discover the genius inventor within us.

Problem solving based on specialised expert insight provides a high level of confidence in both, productivity and predictability of results. In other words, if a problem is trivial and the desired outcomes are well known in advance, there is no need to embark on discovering anything new and a craft-like approach will be the best fit for the job. However, an expectation of disruptive outcomes or invention calls for maximum spontaneity in the creative process, proverbial “thinking outside the box” in order to reach optimal results. I feel that non-routine thinking presents a significant enough value in design to dedicate my next post "brainstorming primed for invention" to an attempt at making brainstorming really “work” in creative pursuits.

______________________

Ronald A. Finke and Jonathan Bettle, 1996, “Chaotic cognition: Principles and Applications”.

Alex F. Osborn, 1956, “Applied Imagination”.

Chris Bernard and Sara Summers, 2010, “Dynamic Prototyping with Sketchflow in Expression Blend”.

Ronald A. Finke, Thomas B. Ward and Steven M. Smith, 1992, “Creative Cognition: Theory, Research and Applications”.

on User Experience design

Opinions on a subject close to one's heart can be quite difficult to express. UX certainly is one I've procrastinated on for a long time and probably will never be able to capture in a short neat post. However, I feel compelled to start boiling it down hoping that in time a well distilled elixir of love will emerge. When unable to precisely define a notion of what one stands for, it is always best to eliminate the superfluous and the opposites from the spectrum of likely candidates for core interests and beliefs.

Rather than the “look and feel” of landing pages or navigation issues, which appear to dominate many UX debates, these days, transitions of interactive devices and mechanisms in user workflows e.g. content authoring tasks, are of particular interest to me. The nature of users' dialogue with the contraptions facilitating task oriented actions within the system is an increasingly important aspect, especially when we consider their impact on the extent of engagement in creating content.

Not intending to discount the significance of navigation, wayfinding and landing page design, I'll focus on the wizards enabling authoring, ongoing maintenance and organisation in ad-hock created content on the web from a user perspective. A few issues immediately come to mind and given time I'll attempt to attribute those to aspects of success and failure in context of user adoption and capability to evolve with changing needs. The cumbersome authoring process of this system (blogspot.com) and blogging systems at large, should provide ample opportunity to discuss failed workflows in contrast with later generation of Social Media sites.

I suspect that much of the failing User Experience can be directly attributed to system design based on code engineering tasks as opposed to usability principles and User Centred Design process in particular. This leads me to the role and the general fit of UX practice in business culture and an interesting paper by Zafer Bilda on this very subject. The report comprises of a number of propositions Bilda presented to a group of 15 UX practitioners in order to solicit their views. I felt motivated enough to respond to the issues raised myself and in part to address the answers he obtained from the group. Read the original paper and my comments on “Chris Khalil’s Musings” blog.

to app or not to app, that is the smartphone question

______________________

cool code in the cold

At present, there seems to be a lot of dispute about the appropriate technology to implement smartphone oriented RIAs (rich internet applications). The debate is especially valid in terms of the 'me too' rush to develop iPhone and iPad apps instead of mobile device optimised websites. This picture is muddy indeed when we consider decisionmaking behind the tendency to favour the native app paradigm and especially the iOS platform. Lets look at a similar credibility dilemma in the recent past - the emphasis on deploying Flash websites, against the better judgement of many internet programmers.

In the days when the 'suits' had no idea of what internet technology objectives were and many felt quite proud of this since they had secretaries to type and print emails, decisions were all too often left to the young 'propeller heads' with little experience and even less expertise. The technologists aware of the big picture in terms of network applications or User Experience seemed just too hard to delegate, especially when requested to “show something by Friday”.

The cool “look and feel” designers stepped in without hesitation. Many had Macromedia Director skills and felt quite comfortable with applications that didn't print and broke the fundamental interactive UI event behaviours. And so, the user got the 'look' in the form of “Wait.. loading Flash” and 'feel' trying to work out how to scroll the information clipped in a tiny fixed size box.

Luckily, by the time the legacy Netscape was buried and the browsers imitating IE DOM provided a nearly uniform client-side scripting environment, the industry had begun to exploit the dynamic possibilities of HTML in combination with HttpRequest object. The 'suits' got a new phoney moniker to talk about; “Web2” and the web became a hub of Social Networks. The ECMA Script committee was shaken up by Microsoft, Google and Yahoo developers who intended to adhere to a deliverable standard, forcing the committee to abandon the ES4 utopia and accept a more realistic roadmap of critical revisions to ES3, which bore the ES5 release in 2009.

The final nail in the coffin for Flash is being hammered in by Steve Jobs. The 'special' relationship between Apple and Adobe (now the owner of Flash) reached a high point when Jobs expressed the commitment not to support Flash on iOS.

______________________

ecosystems deja vu

For a while it seemed that we had the future direction mapped out. But suddenly, the suits began to notice the outstanding growth figures as Apple introduced the new status symbol on the block. The techs lamented – a PDA with GSM not even 3G, UI designers cried – the icons all have the same shape, women frowned – the fingernails get in the way and the calls drop. And yet, the iPhone boosted street credibility in a prolific way and at the same time proved to be the most disruptive technology in a long time.

Tempted by Apple's market success (despite of or more likely due to the device's high cost) and the hefty 30% margin on third party app sales and subscription revenues, the manufacturers are busy clambering up the greasy pole building their own ecosystems. Quite apart from my semantic objections to using the term ecosystem (the original meaning is a topic more alive now than ever before), the concept of proprietary device or system oriented marketplaces for digital products bluntly contradicts the principles of User Centric Design. The notion that consumer choice and their needs are the primary objectives simply falls by the wayside when you lock them to a proprietary procurement and service channel.

The choice between native apps and cell phone optimised websites (web apps) should be based on technical requirements and user tasks, but in reality it is anything but. For one, when a company director or CEO asks for an iPhone app, very few employees have the guts to ask if the decision was purely influenced by the 12 years old technology guru at home. A truly 'smart' phone screen could be a combination of 'gadgets' for live data feeds and links to commonly used web URLs, not unlike a fusion of iGoogle and the Chrome opening page. However, since the phone manufacturers suffer from amnesia when it comes to failures of locked-in online environments e.g. Apple's eWorld or the Microsoft Network, we have to re-learn the lessons of 1995. Thank God that Steve Jobs is on-board this time, even if his health isn't quite what it was in 1996 when he returned to Apple and scrapped the Newton MessagePad.

I realise that statements like this are very controversial and deserve a lot more than an off-the-cuff post. However, in the interest of brevity I want to limit it to a just few key points. So beside the “customer is king” argument, what is the major ecosystem problem?

The business culture relating to Intellectual Property law. Just look at Apple; with 250,000 apps on offer it is apparent that some of them may violate registered patents and Apple is in no position to verify the legitimacy of every offering it sells. So far, when an app becomes a subject of an IP claim Apple pulls the app from the store and in many cases seeks to be admitted as intervenor in the legal case. There are countless reasons for Apple to be involved considering the business size and immaturity of many developers behind these apps. The question is, can and should Apple's (Google and Microsoft are in the same boat) IP people deal with the growth in patent assertions by licensing companies and patent trolls? My guess is obvious I hope.

______________________

the silver lining behind proprietary technology

The native app development environments aim to streamline the implementation and delivery, as well as enhance UI presentation on the respective platform. These intentions are very worthy, but are they effective considering the need to deploy three or more app versions and engage multiple vendors? Microsoft is the last to join the Apple, Google and Nokia ecosystems and back-end clouds. The Windows Phone could become more important now that Nokia adopted it for their products. Even if this choice was strongly influenced by monetary benefits of the partnership, its technical advantages, if any, will constitute the difference the user may experience. Perhaps sharing a few thoughts about WP7 technology will help to illustrate my point.

Personally, I don’t believe that the new focus on the phone as an entertainment device, in preference to the earlier emphases on business/enterprise communications, is anythig but an iPhone panic. The new architecture appears to be aimed at single user games and trivial commerce apps. The Windows Phone 7 platform is based on Silverlight and xna for applications requiring 3D support. These two development paths 2D or 3D are quite distinct and don't allow for mid-stream migration. The single-tasking runtime environment (tombstoned when user switches to another app) is also limited to self-contained executables sand-boxed (exclusive memory and local storage of persistent data) aiming to enhance security and stability, but as a result severely crippled in scope. In plain English, this paradigm hardly looks capable of enabling the next big thing beyond Web2.

Further, just like the Apple, Google and Nokia ecosystems, Windows Phone is totally reliant on the Microsoft controlled delivery channel via the Windows Azure back-end cloud. At large, I dismiss the commonly expressed 'big brother' fears regarding cloud services, however the platform locked user experience objections expressed above remain.

______________________

clouds on the horizon

The cloud paradigm will no doubt be the basis for the next generation of RIAs and provide ample opportunities for new innovative network applications beyond Social Networking and spanning across all forms of devices we happen to have on hand. I believe that in the near term future, HTML5 will become the favoured technology for mobile oriented RIAs over deployment of multiple native apps. For now, the wish list priority focuses on wider HTML5 and SVG support.

As far as the more mature cloud application candidates for the smartphone boom - Microsoft Windows Live or Gmail and Google Apps/Docs hold a lot of promise and yet in business settings I’m still a little dubious at best. As expected, Microsoft manages to meet some formidable design objectives, e.g. 'simplicity' - least effort in adoption since that is the scarcest resource and yes the 'price' is right. But Google services provide a better example for a number of reasons; the claimed high adoption rate, more complete functionality and above all, a business model that doesn't compete with a core legacy revenue source. However, the monetisation model based on advertising isn't free from hindrances when one considers the targeting mechanism. Using context derived from seemingly private content constitutes an obvious problem for anyone with Intellectual Property concerns (clients’ or one's own).

Commercial contract based cloud computing (SaS) is another story, especially for companies culturally struggling with IT departments presenting a mind-field of 'yes men' too afraid to raise an issue or too lazy to address problems.

The recently introduced (June 28 2011) replacement for Business Productivity Online Suite (communication and collaboration tools for MS Office) – the Office 365, which now includes Office Web Apps allowing for online document viewing (including smartphones) and editing (albeit limited), at a reasonable price. This package will be a more attractive option for business startups than companies with legacy in-house data stores, which will no doubt find the migration a daunting task. Moving the data from office servers to the cloud provides countless management shortcuts; however, the process implies a substantial shift in the IT culture and of course requires 'big decision' to commit to that change. Further, there are additional costs and effort accompanying the deployment e.g. business process related manuals, documentation and training.

To be fair, all these meta issues are equally relevant to Google Apps/Docs, in addition to some basic user skill quirks. So far, the feature-set of the Google platform constitutes a superior candidate for a replacement of local desktop apps. But, for many users, the close coupling of local MS Office Applications with Web Apps may provide the 'least pain' path in moving towards the cloud paradigm, e.g. supporting teleworking from home.

The collaborative capability of the two offerings are very hard to compare. The MS check-in / check-out workflow model is easier to adopt and understand through an analogy with the 'track changes' function in regular apps and yet, Google provides real-time editing by multiple users – a more powerful feature; however, in many cases it may take some time to capitalise on these strengths. My experience with Google Wave (same capability) proved that exposing users to tools which are far removed from their familiar ground, introduces hard to overcome barriers and often a sense of dis-empowerment, resulting in a reluctance to learn.

We will see the future before long.

For those interested in the technicalities discussed here Anthony Franco's blog posts “Mass Confusion: The hysteria over Flash, Silverlight, HTML 5, Java FX, and Objective C” and “Mobile Strategy Best Practices“ are well worth a read. Also see mobiThinking article “Mobile applications: native v Web apps – what are the pros and cons?” or these slide presentations (both are on slideshare.net so you can read text outlines instead of flicking slides) on platform specific HTML Apps by Davy Jones "HTML5 is the Future of Mobile, PhoneGap Takes You There Today", Mikko Ohtamaa Building HTML based mobile phone applications and a general Mobile RIA overview by Myles Eftos Smart phone development. A year passed since writing this post and finally I found a programmer's view on this dilemma which is very well expressed in a slide presentation and an article describing a concept of TransMedia Applications by Martin Fowler of ThoughtWorks.