

What will come after web apps and social sites? - daniel-cussen

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?
======
nostrademons
Energy. Biofuels will continue to remain hot until people realize what a
terrible idea they are. Then I'd bet on photovoltaics and advanced battery
technologies.

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.

~~~
Caligula
I would disagree with #2. Gas prices have little effect on commuting. The gas
prices have not had a major effect on consumption. The larger factor is
traffic in large metropolitan areas. Driving an hour each way is far more
detrimental than an extra 5$.

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.

------
simpleenigma
Personally I think that products that help people mange information overload
while providing them a social experience are going to take off in the year or
so. Basically finding ways to tailor information towards the individual
instead of just analyzing the data for the general population.

~~~
daniel-cussen
I agree; web apps and social sites have huge potential and will be big for
years to come. Thing is, they have already been "discovered." I wonder which,
out of the many concepts that seem irrelevant today, will be huge someday.

------
pg
If by web apps you mean server-based apps that you use through some local
client, I think that has decades to run.

------
bcater
Someone is going to change the model of how we interact with computers.
Keyboards are good, mice are good, big plasma screens are really good, but
what's next? Is there a faster or more efficient or more enjoyable way to
interact with computers? Do computers have to be boxy? Do monitors have to be
rectangular? Unless we have reached the pinnacle of "consumer input/output
devices," startups will eventually write the applications that take advantage
of the new model - that is, if it's not startups that design the model.

~~~
sbraford
Yes where are all the "Minority Report"-inspired Y Combinator startups? =)

~~~
ivankirigin
Automated driving is open government-sponsored competition.

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.

------
steve
What are the next sites that will get their users laid.

~~~
jey
<http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html>

~~~
steve
"wow, you really bummed me out, because the dozen other people I had talked to
before you were all like, `a free groupware system, that's an awesome idea!'
Then you depressed me, and I came back here and told the other guys what you
had said, and they were all, `Oh, fuck. He's right.'"

man, I hate that.

------
garbowza
I think the techniques that are being developed for consumer Web 2.0 apps will
start penetrating the business market. And as mobile phone continue to gain
location identification technologies, mobile apps will finally start gaining
more market.

------
dood
Super-fast, ubiquitous (beyond mobile) network computing: the internet
thoroughly integrated into the world. Access to all your data, all the time.
Query-like access to the worlds data. Distributed, fragmented, interconnected
web apps, APIs and aggregations. Simpler, higher-level development tools.
Deeper, subtler collaboration tools. Distributed reputation, trust and
identification tools. Micropayments. A network economy: entrepreneurial
individuals, shifts in business organisation. Commonplace persistent virtual
reality (no, really). Mind-computer interfacing.

Is that the sort of thing you meant?

------
bsaunder
I think robotics and automation will tranform our world in the coming decade.
We are almost at the point where (if we put our minds to it), there's nothing
that we can't automate (IMHO).

------
davidw
I'm hoping for mobiles myself. If the Hecl language were to do moderately
well, that would be a nice thing for me. It was well received at OSCON, where
I gave a presentation on it.

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.

------
rms
Location based apps on cell phones.

~~~
sanj
The best analysis I've heard of this is:

"Location is a much poorer indication of intent than Search."

~~~
ph0rque
Yes, but a combination of search and location will beat just search any day.

~~~
sanj
Only when location it is relevant.

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.

~~~
ph0rque
True, but there's a blurry line between local ads pushed on users and local
services provided to users.

~~~
sanj
It only seems blurry when you're pushing ads; I think that users find it
pretty clear.

I'd suggest that an example for "non-ad services" is CraigsList.

------
tomek
More integration between desktop and web environments. Eventually becoming a
one inseparable instance.

~~~
karzeem
Yes, definitely. From a UI perspective, the power of the desktop is something
no web app can touch. Web apps are around because the thing they do that
desktop apps don't--pulling information from other computers into the cloud--
is hugely powerful, obviously. The developments of the past few years
notwithstanding, I think the future of front ends is tipped heavily in favor
of desktop apps that are tightly integrated with information culled from web
services. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates alluded to this in their interview at D.
The iPhone, incidentally, is a great, early example of how local apps can
trounce the sort of UI you'd find on the web while still adding value to the
web apps they integrate with.

Also next, I think, is going to be users increasingly expecting that any site
they visit should recognize them.

------
aitoehigie
web apps and social sites are the main thing for now and in the coming years.
Desktop apps are so,so outdated, so we shall see most applications being
ported to the web. thereby making the web the new operating system, finally
putting the last nail into microsoft's coffin.

------
Readmore
Private Space Companies. It's time that we finally step into the next
frontier.

------
palish
Passive applications (RescueTime, Di.FM, targeted advertising are examples).

~~~
samson
I also agree. I think passive applications will start to take more of a role
in making things easier for users without them having to constantly tell the
technology what to do.

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.

------
blader
Warp drive.

