I’ve been walking around for some time with a snippet of insight from Kottke regarding the WebOS idea. It so dovetails with my ‘fusion of mobile, PC, and Web’, though I am sure nobody is actually thinking of the mobile part (oh, I am! I am! <waving hand in air>).
Now, the new Google desktop tool has prompted Kottke to come up with a more full-fledged overview of what he sees, rightfully, as the WebOS. My only disagreement is that I do not think he needs to label this Web 3.0. It think it’s fully in Web 2.0 space.
Link: GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS? (kottke.org).
Compared to "standalone" Web apps and desktop apps, applications developed for this hypothetical platform have some powerful advantages. Because they run in a Web browser, these applications are cross platform (assuming that whoever develops such a system develops the local Web server part of it for Windows, OS X, Linux, your mobile phone, etc.), just like Web apps such as Gmail, Basecamp, and Salesforce.com. You don’t need to be on a specific machine with a specific OS…you just need a browser local Web server to access your favorite data and apps.
Yes, once day you won’t care where your stuff is, so long as you can find it. I can see load of applications that can benefit from this model. Break free from the silos of PC, mobile, and Web. Fuse it all together and build those great interfaces. That’s where it’s all going. That’s what it’s all going to be about.
