TechCrunch had a guest writer on yesterday, an old school tech head named Marc Benioff of Saleforce.com fame, titled “Hello, iPad. Hello, Cloud 2.” I say old school tech head with a bit of respect because although I’m from the same era, he pursued tech with greater zeal than I. I never wanted tech to become a job, jobs when I was younger meant work and work was not meant to be fun. It was work. Something that changed when I got older, like nearly everything does… changes.
But apparently not trends in technology. No, when you start thinking about it, nothing has really changed. The schemes have gotten more advanced, where we move from two-inch thick keyboards to type on that had bewilderingly loud clicking, and CRT monitors that weigh in around 45 lbs to quarter inch wireless keyboards that I haven’t needed to change batteries on since I got it, and dual LED Backlit monitors that weigh in around 4 lbs and are a half inch thick. We’re primarily the same in terms of consumption and creation. Keyboard – Mouse – Video. That too will never change it seems. My Science Fiction, Cyberpunk days of playing a R. Talsorian Game named Cyberpunk 2020 makes we crave bleeding edge technology. I still want my teleporter, and the ability to navigate the internet at the speed of thought, and like Johnny Mnemonic, stash data in my head, or like Chuck, be able to recall anything I need at a moments notice about anyone or anything that happens to be in my database. Niice.
Anyway, I was talking about everything old being new again. Mr. Benioff is discussing the benefits of the iPad which is due to drop to stores and doorways on April 3rd. Benioff and I got started on the same computer, the TRS-80 [Trash Eighty], different models, different ages, but interestingly enough, the same computer. My first owned computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000. I programmed in line-interpreted basic to either a ram pack the size of pack of cigarettes but I think was only 16k and cost $50.
Benioff talks about the Cloud, and shifting from Cloud 1 to Cloud 2. And what is so funny about the revelations the talks about is that they are old concepts, that if pursued from their initial launch, we’d be far more advanced than we are now. So, here is the way that Benioff lists the change.
We move from Type/Click to Touch. Which was done back when the Newton was around and then later iterations with the iPaq [ipod? ipad?] from Compaq and the brethren. If not for painfully little adoption, we’d be far beyond the iPad. Why the poor adoption? I’ll get to that.
Social media in Cloud 1 was apparently Yahoo/Amazon and has converted to Facebook, but as I wrote previously, Classmates.com was around well before Facebook, and I had a site called WeekendGreek that encouraged the creation of Greek style social systems for community colleges because there is little to no camaraderie at the CC level. Most people are working, but the networking aspect of a Fraternity/Sorority is key to business. Why do you think you hear so much about Harvard and Yale? Don’t think it is because of the pure genius that emanates from the red brick walls. It is because they help each other out, and have the means to not worry about the day-to-day grind of life. Facebook allows a very quick connection to those you work, learn, or socialize with, and then converts it all into socialization. Primarily digital, and it is all stored, but lets not go down that road here.
Then we have “Tabs” which is C1, and “Feeds” which is C2. Now, I’m fine with breaking this out into its own category, but its a factor of navigation and consumption and really should be included in a lower section. I say this because Tabs, which I’m assuming is part of the whole browser architecture in relation to his discussion, is a PULL concept. You only get what you want when you want it, where you want it. Whereas Feeds implies you are in PUSH mode, and data is sent to you. This too was around when iPaq was big for tech heads, and before with mailing lists [listserv] which is something else I’ve spoken about. Again, nothing new. Handango used to push content to my iPaq all the time. When I worked in the past, I created a portal project that would push information to customers, and this was 15 years ago now.
He also says Chat is now Video. This has been around as well. Do you see this trend? Everything old is new again. And the key factor here is the technology opening up the pipe by force of consumer will. If this were a nationalized project of optical fiber sent to the four corners of the US, then decoupled from Federal control, we’d have a huge optical and interoperable network capable of gigabit speeds, but the compartmentalization of cable providers, phone providers, DSL not truly succeeding because of the Cable and Phone companies not moving fast enough since they were competition and then a geographic hegemony in choice for supplier for bandwidth and you have what we have now. Fractional growth. You can complain about the Government having a hand in something and it always being bad. Look at the Internet. It went from Tactical to Practical. Now we have ChatRoulette which I refuse to link to. Chat is now Video, 4+ million users, 98.6% pervert, 1.3% curious, .1% female. Very nervous female. We’ve had video, audio, and text chat combined for 10 years. The bandwidth was the limitation.
He talks about Pull becoming Push which is the difference between going out and getting what you want as opposed to getting sent what you want and need preemptively. Again, I’ll just say Handango… iPaq… Internet… myriad other things.
Here is the biggest change… we’re moving from a generation that created [Cloud 1 and the Internet phenomena altogether] to a generation that consumes the internet [Cloud 2 or just C2]. In C2, you have the era of the iPad. The iPad is purely consumptive. You won’t be creating much via the iPad. Some mail, a presentation on the fly, cropping a picture hastily taken and someone photobombed so you have to remove a person. Not much else. I’ve written about it in the past. Your standard computer is dead. Now is the age of the dumb terminal, that too has returned from a bygone age. This is the generation of the Geek, whereas the last 30 years was the generation of the Nerd-Hacker. There is a fundamental difference there. The Nerd or Hacker created something with their knowledge, skills, and ambition. They hobbled together a patchwork of technologies and created everything that today’s odd personality Geek is consuming. Yes, there are still some people who identify as a Nerd or Hacker, but they are are mulligans, throwbacks and not the primary engine of the Internet. You can’t imagine, as a reader of my blog, what is out there on the Internet and in the undernet. It would frighten you so much, you’d become a Luddite just to reverse the insanity.
Another big move in direction. Location. Location Unaware as Benioff calls it, is anonymity. That is nearly gone for 400 million users of Facebook alone. If you account for credit card companies; nothing is truly private. I can purchase a background check for anyone; $15 to start it. It won’t be profound, but location is easy. If my PI training has taught me one thing, it is that you can find anyone if you look hard enough. Cloud 2 removes this location based anonymity. You are public if you sign up for various services, and Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare are leading the charge it seems. Facebook is a Right-Time, Right-Place kind of event. I think it too will go away. Something else will beat it. Probably when the Internet as an information source becomes more pervasive and always in your face. One thing that will either get implemented by Social Sites, or destroy them… reputation management. It is why I created MobWatch, a reputation manager in its infancy. I purchased that domain years ago, wanted to launch a rep manager, but simply don’t love programming so much that I’d do it from scratch. So, I waited until I found software that can do it to a high degree. It’s live now if you want to check it out.
Then Benioff lists that the Desktop/Notebook is dead as far as Cloud 1 goes, and the switch for Cloud 2 is smart phones and tablets. I agree, I wrote about that previously here on my Blog. The desktop computer, and in another 8-10 years, the notebook/laptop will be just as dead. Power Computing is left to playing games, creating “high end” video, and number crunching in general. Regular users simply don’t need a Four Gigahertz 8 core processor to read mail.
And then, the icing on the cake of the Techcrunch article is that Cloud 1 was all about Windows/Mac, and will switch to Cocoa/HTML5. This is probably the most telling aspect of what Benioff is thinking. Although the implication is that the hardware platform is dead, and we’re moving to a different software standard.. he really seems to mean that Windows is dead because Cocoa is all Apple, and HTML5 is being driven into everyone consumers head as part and parcel to the iPad. Again, Apple.
I agree, the hardware platform is pretty much dead. Now it is form factor and software platform. Get it in our hands, get it consumed easily. Let us have it, but don’t give us what YOU want, give us what WE want. I knew the hardware platform was dead when I realized that my 75 lb Dell XPS was less powerful than my Mac Mini [short of the superbly powerful video capabilities of triple SLi'd cards from nVidia]. If they would produce external video cards that are optically linked, and I can upgrade at will without opening my case… Hmmm… I suppose that is why I purchased the domain and started researching a product I call StaxPC. I’m all about thinking in regards to future technologies, but I don’t work for anyone and have not worked for anyone that can make manifest my ideas. Some are profound, some are lacking in reason. I won’t argue that. One thing I will argue is that technology has gotten better and things online have gotten better and worse at the same time. I never heard until about 5 years ago, that someone committed suicide due to online bullying. It just didn’t happen. That is because people were unknown. You had a handle, a call sign, nickname, whatever you want to call it. No one knew you. You hardly were yourself and you could rebuff any issue with ease, and flame anyone if you wanted.
Now, in Cloud 2, you can’t get away. Your real life world is identical to your online world unless you are conscious of it, and make an effort to limit crossing the beams. The iPad will change the scene even more if it gains great adoption; Touch screen ease, easily Facebook and Twitter integrated, with Push feeds, a video integration option surely coming, the ability to consume everything and create little, all while being interoperable and location aware. This device is a step away from being your persona, not just online. If it could learn from you, it would be a simple matter of just connecting it to a power supply and it will surf the net, post for you while you work, answer emails while you sleep, and ride your pet unicorn to blow off steam.