Personal Broadcast Networks, or Web 2.0, is now finally beginning to get some traction. Some evidence of this includes a white paper that has been written by the CSA of Macromedia (Kevin Lynch). The paper explains how Flash Applications use web services to make Rich Internet Applications. Also, the CTO of BEA (Adam Bosworth) has been writing quite a bit on the Web Services Browser. While the two of them are working in significantly different areas, both are trying to offer a solution to the same problem: how can a new software client be built that will fully satisfy the vision that Web 2.0 promises?
So what exactly is Web 2.0? It’s a complex system, but essentially what it does is try to break up the traditional model of web sites with centralized locations and move the power of the Internet to a user’s desktop. There are three basic ingredients: the source, the transport, and the client. The source is the data and functionality, such as a desktop peer or simply a web service. The transport is the connection, such as RSS, P2P, SOAP, or XML-RP. The client is the desktop software. What this means is that the power of the web is put into the individual PC user’s realm, which is where it belongs.
There has been a ton of progress into the first two steps but the final part of the puzzle has been facing some difficulty. This is mainly because of Microsoft and the large market share they hold when it comes to internet browsers. While developers have been rather hesitant about fighting Microsoft, Web 2.0 desktop apps are slowly being developed and it looks as though the tide is close to shifting.
There are three distinct approaches to filling the gap. One features a much more enhanced method for browsing (Flash). Another involves a desktop centered website (radio). The final is a customized application for the desktop (.Net and custom apps such as NetNewsWire). All three will likely gain quite a bit of traction over the next several years, but one of the better ways would be to utilize a content management system (CMS) onto the desktop itself in order to provide a much better overall experience by leveraging browser limitations. This would give users the ability to transition seamlessly into Web 2.0.