What will come after web apps and social sites?
A lot of startups seem to be doing these two things. While there are plenty of opportunities in these areas, what do you think the next big thing will be?
Oh, you meant in software? ;-)
I think that VOIP/videoconferencing/telecommuting software will get even huger than it is now, along with better social software to manage these interactions. There're three main drivers for this:
1.) The cost of bandwidth continues to plummet. YouTube showed that it's feasible to stream decent-quality video to millions of users at once.
2.) The cost of gas continues to skyrocket. As commuting becomes more expensive, more knowledge workers will look for an alternative to commuting. Given current technology, it's easier simply not to drive than to find more fuel-efficient ways of driving.
3.) Certain companies and projects are showing that it's feasible to work in geographically distributed teams. 37signals has about half of their staff in the Chicago office. The ICFP contest involves a very tricky task that's usually performed by teams of half a dozen people distributed all around the globe. A lot of volunteer organizations and nonprofit websites have large (sometimes > 200 people) teams and no physical office.
Biofuels have their place. They are not the magical pill that will wean America of middle eastern oil but they surely have their respectable percentage over time.
Now, of course, there's still the gorilla-arm problem if you want to put it on a wall, but Cintiq or table-style, no problem. Folks out there should be thinking two or three steps ahead on this technology, I try to.
Keep your eye on Perceptive Pixel:
Article: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/112/open_features-cantto...
Demo: http://light.vpod.tv/?s=0.0.135867
Fascinating speculation: http://informationrain.com/2007/06/10/resolution-independenc...
Instead of a different monitor shape, your stereo, your television, your car, your phone, your home systems, etc will all just become computers with the same natural interfaces they always had.
Sick-sticks are just a different form of tazer.
Eye transplants require better surgical techniques for the optic nerve to last.
Reading the future is impossible.
People are actively working on cognitive enhancers without side effects. They won't be stealthy once they work.
Keeping people in stasis requires a better understanding of brains.
Electronic Ink is getting better, but video on a reasonable display will take some time.
Gestural interfaces work fairly well, but the only deployed systems are for games (EyeToy for PS2). This has room for growth. But the large screen would probably be better used for teleconferencing as remote teams need better tools than we have today. But Wii and Multi-Touch IPhone are almost there.
The spider robots must have had an incredible amount of computation and powerful sensors in order to map a room, detect people, and locomote. The mobility platform wouldn't be that hard to build, but would be fragile compared with the treads you find in today's military robots.
Seeing people through walls is done with radar by the military today.
man, I hate that.
Is that the sort of thing you meant?
One of the reasons that I think that mobiles will do well is that I think there are a huge number of untapped possibilities out there as phones keep getting faster and better connected. We're all walking around with computers in our pockets and we don't use them at all, currently.
"Location is a much poorer indication of intent than Search."
I'd hazard that 95% of the time that I search, I don't care about location. Pretty much everyone will ship to where I am.
Here's the thing: I believe that location-based apps are more about pushing local ads to users than they are about providing services. While that remains the case, they will be a nonstarter.
I'd suggest that an example for "non-ad services" is CraigsList.
99.99% of your searches don't benefit at all from location.
Also next, I think, is going to be users increasingly expecting that any site they visit should recognize them.
Web 2.0 seems to me like we have taken one step backwards with regard technological innovation. There's nothing inherently advanced about tagging (which seems to be one of the corner stone features of web 2.0), to me it's a thing that could have been done in the 1980's (if not 70's). All thats been done recently is we figured that computers on their own cannot do all that we expect it to.
Unfortunately I think in figuring this out we have gone a little too much on the extreme end of things. Users are now at the point where they constantly have to tag EVERY SINGLE THING to find it.
But this is not a complete bashing of the way the web is now, perhaps we needed to take that one step backward, before we can now move several steps forward.