Top 10 reasons why web 2.0 apps will work - in 10 years

I keep getting comments and e-mails like “that’s impossible” or “it will be too slow to run this app over the web” and “this is nonsense, you have to install an application to do that”. I have to say - I love those comments! Keep ‘em coming! It keeps me going, trying to find the best web solutions out there but most importantly - it makes me want to challenge the market even more!

“I want to live my uninstalled life - period!”

Nothing installed on my desktop and I want the same features as I would have otherwise. If I want that icon in the activity field on my desktop when I receive an email - I want just that. If I want to store 100 GB online (or even 1 TB) - I want just that. And it shouldn’t cost me a fortune.

But people still say - it’s not possible! But I want to challenge you and say - it is possible! Only a pessimist would say it’s not possible. Maybe not today but it will be possible. Maybe in 1 year - maybe in 10 years. And I will tell you why!

1.
Did you ever think “If they only could add this feature.. but I guess it’s impossible and too expensive!”? … And today you use it every day and simply don’t think about that you had that tought a few years ago? Some examples:
- In 1985: I wish I could read the newspaper from home without going out and buy it - Now you can!
- In 1991: I wish I could afford an harddrive and run my Amigagames from there instead of floppies - Now you can!
- In 1995: I wish I could access the Internet without calling up with a modem. - Now you can!
- In 2000: I wish I could stream my favorite television serie to my computer while sitting at the airport. - Now you can!
- In 2006: I wish I could edit my videos in real-time over the Internet on a laptop on an airplane over the pacific ocean - Well, you can’t do that - yet

2.
Web browsers evolve - More and more people use Firefox nowadays. It was just around 2 years ago 1.0 was released. Imagine what they can accomplish in the next two years. And imagine what have happened since this :)

3..
Technology evolve - Technologies such as CSS, HTML, Java, ASP, .NET will not stop here. Hey, even the phrase web 2.0 wasn’t heard of before 2004.

4.
People evolve - When people say “this can’t be done” we’re heading the wrong way. There’s no such thing as “can’t be done…”

5.
Market growth! - This is something people forget. Today we have many hundreds of millions of people accessing the Internet, but most of the world don’t. For an example, look at my Google Analytics statistics. I wouldn’t say this is the general surf habits of the world but see how much of the world that is still not connected and surfing daily?

6.
Where’s the money?! - Let’s face it - we prefer free! This becomes a problem for those “startups” that want to spend loads of money on developing a product. Sometimes, they seem to focus more on “I hope Google see how good our product is - and pay loads of $$$ for it…” than to develop a product they can sell and make money out of. This won’t hold in the long-run. But companies and organizations usually prefer to pay and when they start using the services out there - we’ll see more and better services.

7.
Broadband market! - I’m running 24/1 Mbit at home and that’s probably pretty good since most people in Sweden can get that for cheap. But what about the rest of the world? Even in most parts of the world you can’t get high speed Internet for cheap. I know a friend working in Johannesburg, South-Africa and they pay around a a year’s salary for a month’s Internetconnection. I guess it’ll take a few years until they’ll catch up - but they will!

8.
Everybody goes web! - Now news for most, but more and more applications are getting “webified”. Before it was only new services but even Microsoft are making their Office Suite for the web. I wonder when they no longer have a locally installed one to buy?

9.
Access from anywhere - this is a huge problem. If I can’t access the Internet, I can’t access anything. But technologies are coming. Wireless cafe’s, hotspots, 3G, Wimax, handheld devices, better batterylife are just a few things that has to be evolved.

10.
Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge - A few years ago, people trusted the big ones at Google to develop new services and products. But today, a lot of startups are doing their own thing. People have the knowledge to develop powerful products and services! They see the potential in the technology to develop something useful for people. Even the average person can start their own domain and start blogging.

So I won’t say all my visions are possible today. And maybe it won’t take 10 years to fully get the “web 2.0-features” I want. Maybe it will 2… or 15?! But that’s why I have this blog. I don’t want to focus on what we had a few years ago - I want to focus on what we could get! And reviewing the applications available today and their potential is one way to see where the market will go. Another way is to simply flip-out and look for “unreasonable” services. Unreasonable today - yes - both maybe not tomorrow!

I hope you keep reading my blog where I try to uninstall everything. And keep those comments coming - challenge me!

Still not convinced? Check the original Netscape website out how it looked in 1994. If it took 12 years to come from that to this - imagine what we’ll see in 10 years.