Are You Webbed?

I was up late one night when I had a funny thought..."I wonder if I can go completely webbed?" There are more than enough web applications available for me to handle my day to day computing tasks without using any desktop software besides my web browser. Some are easy ( dozens of email clients come to mind). There are lots of desktop publishing and word processing software online. I don't do much image or photo editing but I'm aware of a few creative tools as well. Even online storage utilities rid us of the need for a filesystem like Windows Explorer. That one's a little scary though. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with ALL my data online. I'll be damned if I won't give it a shot though. Wish me luck!

The New Web Platform

I started this website to categorize and provide resources for the next generation of applications developed on the internet, or more specifically, the NEW web platform. In the last 30 years we've seen software platforms evolve from the operating systems of the 80's and early 90's, to the world wide web of the mid to late 90's. Web based applications like Amazon, Ebay and Yahoo Mail used the world wide web as the staging ground for their increasingly productive and efficient applications. Google, Youtube and Facebook are among the latest generation of internet apps that have taken this a step further to bring together applications users, volumes of data and resources in creative and exciting ways. Not only have these juggernaut software developers helped usher in a new generation of online apps, they've also helped to establish the next step in software platforms. Just as the operating systems of the 80's and 90's had given way to the internet as a development platform, the internet is beginning to give way to the internet applications themselves as the developers leverage existing internet apps to develop more creative online applications (typically called mashups).

This notion is nothing new. Mashups have been around for years and companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google have begun to reach out to the development community with a variety of mashup creation tools and utilities. This new software medium is still in its infancy as it's mostly limited to small and often experimental applications. Enterprise mashups have yet to reach mainstream but it looks to surface real soon. I'll be there every step of the way to hopefully provide a wealth of knowledge, information, news and opinions.