Earlier in the week, in a post about music as a service, I wrote about the rapidly approaching era of always on, ubiquitous internet connectivity. I talked about the fact that it’s not about the technology though, it’s about the platform that the technology provides.
Here’s an example.
In a post entitled When Is Windows Not Windows?, Genuine Curiosity points us to AjaxWindows. This Ajax technology based service allows the operation of a complete Windows like environment – writing, spreadsheets, e-mail – all within a GMail account. All accessible from anywhere in the world via the internet.
In case you didn’t notice, I called AjaxWindows a service. Sure it’s a software, but not in the sense we’ve grown accustomed too. Not in the sense of buying a disc, inserting it into your…hmmm, does this sound familiar?
So, AjaxWindows is delivering what used to be a product in the form of a service. A sponsored service at that. Do I know it will succeed? No. Do I think this is exactly what music needs to do? No and yes, but only time will tell.
What I do believe though, is that a web based productivity suite is very attractive to me for two reasons. One, I don’t like being tethered to one computer in order to accomplish my work. This is all led by my company of course, but none the less, I can only do certain things on one computer. But more importantly, I’m intrigued by what’s next.
Truth be told, I find the entire computer experience confining and draining. As much as it helps me do a LOT, none of it flows very well. I, like everyone else, have dramatically changed how I work and think because of the way computers work and the design of the interfaces we’ve developed so far. The always on web will change this although I’m not sure exactly how.
I’m excited and you should be too. Why? Because despite the doomsdayers in the music industry and despite the fact that they’ve all blown it, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Be ready.
