Internet 2.0 Trends
Broadband adoption
We're seeing rapid adoption of broadband in the home, both in Australia, the US and worldwide. Five years ago it was not safe to assume that the user's computer had a continuous, reliable connection to the internet. Today it is safe to assume that hundreds of millions of users have dependable internet access. That means users no longer need to save their own content on the own computers. They can now access their own content just as quickly and reliably when it's saved somewhere on the internet. And there's talk of large-scale public projects to provide entire cities with WiFi or WiMax coverage. Broadband wireless access will become increasingly ubiquitous.
A good web site is now built to evolve along with its owners, builders, contributors, and users.
Is your web site built to evolve? Does your site point out what it doesn't know as well as what it does know? Does your site say that there's more to learn? Does your site ask people to help make it better? If you ask me, that's what this Web 2.0 stuff is all about. - David Seigel
Cheap computers
Five years ago a home computer cost thousands of dollars. Very few people owned more than one. Today a home computer costs $500, and in a few years a computer will cost $100. Soon there will be many people who own more than one computer, and people will frequently have access to the internet through other people's computers, at their friends houses, at the library, or at work. It will become more convenient to have your content stored on the internet than to have it stored on your own computer, because you will always have access to the internet, but you often won't be at your own computer. Additionally, it will become increasingly inconvenient (or impossible) to install desktop apps on all the computers you use. Instead, users will want to use browser-based apps that are always available on any computer.
Browser-based apps
Because of the above trends, we're starting to see widespread adoption of browser-based apps that store content on the internet. Examples include Gmail, Flickr, del.icio.us, and Hotmail.
Wiki and CMS adoption
We're also seeing increasing adoption of wikis and Content Management Systems, and increasing interest in development of commercial-quality wiki software (Jotspot, Wikimedia, etc.).
DHTML and AJAX adoption
There's a recent widespread awakening to the potential of architectures based on DHTML and AJAX. Examples include Google Suggest, Gmail, and Yahoo's Oddpost. Development dollars will start flowing toward AJAX apps. In the next decade old-style browser apps will gradually die off, and AJAX apps will take their place.
Google recently unveiled their latest trick, Google Suggest, a brilliant feature which attempts to complete whatever you type in the search box. If you haven't already, try it now.
What is Google Suggest?
Google's 'Suggest' has a great feature that attempts to complete whatever you type in the search box. If you haven't already, try it now.
The results it returns are shown in descending order of relevance - i.e. what you're most likely to be searching for. Clearly this makes Suggest very useful for identifying the most popular terms on the internet - for example, by the first letter of the alphabet (A - Amazon, B - Best Buy, C - CNN etc). Originally it was only available to Internet Explorer via ActiveX, but recently other standards compliant browsers have added equivalent functionality to their browsers. It's possible to achieve similar results with IFRAMEs, but with less seamless results (e.g., in IE a horrible clicking sound occurs whenever a new page loads).
Interesting interview on search term research.