I believe it might first go through the privacy & confidentality challenge so as to enable a new context-based software platform that mixes virtual and real worlds into a full-fledged experience (http://bit.ly/LCJdeP).This (http://bit.ly/Ly4VSk) is a likelly subscription-and-advertising business model that could boost other developers as well (http://bit.ly/K1EUH6).

Cheers!

Since technology is now moving faster than women’s fashion (thank you, Mr Ellison), it seems to me advertisers will have a role to play in the new economy. I envision an updated version of the upfront marketplace in the TV industry where advertisers invest their money in technology concepts in exchange for preferential access.

I think the key is to allow developers their autonomy and use the power of the crowd to link everything together. Create an API clearing house of all other APIs so your app can talk to any other app – or user – in any language you desire, all based on common data attributes.

I’ve started work on specifications for one possible solution, but it’s not going to be easy. In order for something like this to succeed you need a large player to open up their data in a share-alike environment.

If you’re interested, here’s what I’m working on: http://palmettoapi.com – completely crowd-sourced and not-for-profit. Also check out the Locker Project…. although I think requiring software is too heavy a burden. This all needs to happen in the cloud as you said.

The life-cycle view would see a disruption followed by a burst of innovation. Historically, you see a multiplication of standards, which then contract. Radio, automobiles and trains are examples. If this is the case, we’ll get back to common standards for even valuable standards, and what I read as your frustration at the slow pace of a pre-determined evolution is warranted.

I wonder, though, if the economics of platforms have changed. Scale may not be worth what it used to, perhaps because interoperability can be achieved cheaply ad hoc, particularly given path-dependent investments in proprietary standards. Without economies of scale breathing down their necks, it may take a very long time to negotiate which platforms have to kneel.

Moreover, this automatic process of standard-emergence has to compete with the profitability of sculpting inter-operability. Walled gardens have their value, which creates constant tension with the economies of scale gained from common standards. Again, ad hoc inter-operability could conceivably beat scale.

It seems to me the two competing metaphors are language and community. In language, the benefits to inter-operability overwhelm the benefits of nuanced inter-operability (pace dialects, cants, etc). In community, the benefits of refined inter-operability outweigh the benefits of scale. So you have family, friends, friends-of-friends, strangers, people who ride the same bus, etc. All have different levels of ‘claim’ on you, and that works better than everybody being undifferentiated comrades (ie common standards).

Personally, I would bet on the community model, not the language model. Meaning we may continue what we’re seeing today – common standards where inter-operability sculpting is not monetized (Apache, Linux) and negotiated operability pairings when valuable networks want compatibility (Twitter-Google).