The future of the Web, What’s New and What’s Coming Soon

Innumerable stories have been written about the future. In late 40s, George Orwell described an apocalyptic world yielded to an omnipresent system in his mythical novel 1984. Twenty years after, Stanley Kubrick presented his imagined idea of the new millennium’s world through his movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Even if those visions weren’t asserted quite cigar (fortunately), they have one thing in common: they both define the world in technological terms. Nowadays we can’t deny our future is online. We married the World Wide Web some years ago and till death do us apart.

How will this union get in the following times? Here are some trends that will be likely to become our daily bread tomorrow:

Mobility

Until now, the most common way of Internet surfing was sitting in front of a computer. A laptop with Wi-Fi, a BlackBerry or an iPhone; were the closest hardware accessories to a mobile Web. Nevertheless, a new Web is about to born, a Web conceived for mobility where everything has to do with location.

Brandon Mendelson, who define himself as one of the most followed people on Twitter, uses mobile technology to mobilize and empower people to help others! He states that “the future of the web is mobile” [we agree!]. In addition, Rahul Sonnad, founder and CEO of Santa Monica-based tech start-up Geodelic Systems, presents this new Web as a combination of mobile devices with web browsing along with accurate location awareness. A Web who knows where you’re at and provides you all the pertinent data, from the coffee shop promos around the corner to historic curiosities about the spot you’re standing on. It will be like browsing the real world itself, not just the digital one.

The proliferation of location enabled devices like GPS or smart phones provides an opportunity for brands to improve the quality of the consumer’s experience by changing the way their information is created according to the real world’s space possibilities; says Sonnad.

Sharing

Human’s urge to communicate and share thoughts, experiences and ideas through posts, photos, videos or any online expression format have positioned social networks as the place to be in the cyberworld.

The future may be about a new platform for people to save and share their life’s moment. In this sense, ThisMomentis no longer focused in sharing lives, but in specific special instants through a computer or a mobile device. ThisMoment creates a holistic experience and is already in sight of leading media companies.

Bill French, an information architect specializing in Internet applications and Co-founder of MyST Technology Partners, Inc. says that “in the next 24 months, any business that hasn’t transformed their Web site into a social media core for all marketing content and conversational activities will be considered irrelevant by people and machines (i.e., search engines, flow engines, etc.)”. So, sharing seems to be the key!

Cybernetics

What’s wrong about dreaming in a supersonic’s life? With the technological advances mixed to natural sciences, a whole new lifestyle could be a click away. Graham Jones, an Internet Psychologist, assures us that it will relatively soon be possible to connect biological systems with computerized ones; it has been already possible to control a robot using the brain of a mouse and transmit information from one person to another’s nervous system through Internet. According to him, we will be able to get rid of keyboards and transmit information by thinking and swap data from the brain to a web-based store; a place to file copies of the information in our brain. That is just amazing!

Interactivity: The communication experience

We all love interactivity! Online TV, Video, Advertising… they are taking advantage of this trend. Emily Gannett, co-founder of an interactive video platform called KlickableTV, believes that their technology is what’s new and what’s coming soon!  This interactive video platform is a good example of how to create a comprehensive viewing experience and provides unique insights into viewer behavior.

Probably in the future, intelligent Web design will get so aware of users’ profiles that the Web will know us better than our mother, in order to talk to each user in his or her very personal language. As we take information from the Web, it will take information from us though our online activity; who said that wasn’t a dialogue?

Real money in online business

Free or Paid? That’s the big question on the future of online business. It’s usually said that the future of online business is free of charge. But; we believe that it’s A future of business, not THE, right?

Why can’t micropayments be the future of the web? Troy O’Bryan, President & CEO of Response Capture, Inc.says that “hefty subscriptions and licenses will be a thing of the past.  Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) were of the first to prove the model”.  At Response Capture, they believe that “marketers should only have to pay for what they use or more importantly what their target responder uses.  Paying for more is a waste”.

Even though it’s true that the majority of people don’t like to pay for material they actually can get for free, it doesn’t mean that everything online must be that way. There are several ways to do business online and combine ways of shopping; and, there will definitely be new ones! We will be witnesses of the proliferation of social networking/ecommerce sites where you can offer your products or services, or even social networking/shopping sites where you can shop and get cash back! For instance, GreenBackStreet.com provides Cash Back rebates for shopping at more than 1,100 national and local stores. According to National Marketing Director, Eric Brisgel “Whether you’re looking for the best price on the latest tech gadgets or everyday items, if you have  an interest in providing for your non-profit organization, religious group, association, employees or just enjoy the social networking aspects, GreenBackStreet.com provides an ultra-convenient, FREE method of saving thousands of dollars”.

In addition, the pay per result model will have more presence online and e-commerce features will keep improving and providing security and privacy [at least, we hope so].

Finally, Brandon Muth says “that the biggest move we’re going to see over the next 10 years is focus and quality”. Absolutely, YES! We also believe that we have a lot of things to do to improve quality, ‘cause like in the evolution of species, only the best qualified will last! We invite you all to be part of that great future!

Before the future comes upon us, we’d like to thank all the comments that made this article possible. About tomorrow we don’t know that much, but what is sure by now is we’ll keep on touch online; after all, we all live in this yellow submarine.