The web isn't much use without equipment to access it.
Chances are you're sitting near a PC. You have Internet
Explorer or FireFox open. You have dozens of bookmarks, loads of
plug-ins and a dependent relationship with your preferred search
engine. David Rose, founder and chief creative officer of
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Ambient
Devices, thinks all that can be overkill. He would just as soon
glance over at a colorful glowing ball and tell you the weather
report or if the stock market will tank. Welcome to the Third
Wave.
The first wave was your standard HTML browser. The second wave
was mobile devices like phones and PDAs that can access online
content. "The Third Wave will be literally thousands of
different devices and designs that show information people care
about in forms that are embedded in things like watches or umbrella
handles, increasing the utility of everyday objects," says
Rose, 38.
Ambient's flagship product, the Ambient Orb, is a frosted
glass ball that changes color to indicate changes in the stock
market. It can also be set to meter customized information. It
connects to the internet through a nationwide wireless network but
doesn't require users to have a computer or their own internet
connection. Rose hopes that the simplified delivery will appeal to
those who feel overwhelmed by data. If Ambient Devices is any
indication, the web could very well be coming to an umbrella handle
near you soon.
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What's in It for You?
That's a whole lot of innovation to try to keep up with. Right
now, most entrepreneurs are spending their energy on keeping their
websites updated, improving search engine rankings and
investigating online marketing opportunities. Richard Riley, vice
president and general manager of Yahoo! Small
Business, is keeping an eye on the future of growing businesses
and the web. "We'll rapidly go from a world where less
than 50 percent of small businesses have a website to it being
absolutely business-critical. Their online presence will become
increasingly sophisticated [and] personalized to their
customers," says Riley. He also sees more businesses adopting
blogs as a way to communicate frequently with customers.
It's early days yet, but entrepreneurs are discovering
online marketing as an affordable and effective way to reach
customers. "You'll see a real explosion in the number of
small businesses advertising online," says Riley.
More websites, blogging and online marketing may not be the most
glamorous technological advances, but they are the ones that will
impact your business directly over the next few years. No one can
be sure exactly what the web will look like in five or 10 years,
but we have some good guesses. The trends of today will lay the
path for the web of tomorrow, and growing businesses will be in the
thick of it all, blazing trails and taking new technologies to the
limit.
Gaze Into Microsoft's Crystal
Ball...
Over at Microsoft, the company has taken its small-business
customer service quest to the web with the Small
Business Center. It's part of the larger trend of moving
business functions of all kinds to the web. We asked Doug Leland,
general manager of small business for Microsoft's Worldwide
Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partner Group, and Frederic
DeWulf, Microsoft's U.S. small business web director, to
reflect on the future of the web.
Mobile web technology, like online access through smartphones or
PDAs, is an intriguing concept for growing businesses.
"We're still in the earlier adopter phase. [Users] are
starting to realize the productivity benefits," says DeWulf.
"It's growing pretty rapidly in certain industries that
have a higher share of mobile workers." Not all entrepreneurs
will be rushing out to buy Treos for their employees, but as speeds
increase and the technology matures, it will give a leg up to
businesses that crave mobile access.
"Small businesses will leverage the web to move more and
more of their business functionality to the web. It's started
where we are today with e-mail, web hosting and having an internet
site. Communications and marketing leverage of the web is going to
grow," says Leland. He also sees more commerce-oriented online
businesses emerging over the next several years. Along with that
comes a phenomenon he calls "global competition for local
customers." That means the web will become increasingly
important for growing businesses, no matter their industry or
brick-and-mortar presence. It's a wide web world out there, and
it's only going to get bigger.
Taking Stock With Flock
Who better to offer their views on the future of the web than a
couple of cutting-edge web entrepreneurs? Bart Decrem and Geoffrey
Arone, both in their thirties, are the co-founders of Flock, a new browser
built on open-source principles that has social networking and the
Web 2.0 at heart. "Flock is a social browser. The goal is to
take the web browser and evolve it the same way the web has
evolved, to something a lot more interactive," says Arone.
Flock's location in a Palo Alto, California, garage along with
the company's all-night programming sessions and boundless
enthusiasm are reminiscent of the web boom's early days.
The success of Mozilla's FireFox has helped loosen Internet
Explorer's grip on the browser market and left the landscape
open to innovators. Decrem has some thoughts to share with the new
crop of technology entrepreneurs: "The big thing that's
going on is that control is shifting from the creators of content
and the publishers of content to the consumers," he says.
"The winning startups have embraced [this shift instead of]
fighting and trying to control it."
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