My dinner with Scoble

I had dinner with Robert last night. Our central topic was, where's the smart client going?

We talked about how lousy the Web interface really is. I've lost a number of partially complete blog posts to browser nagivation behavior, which is extremely irritating. And then, today, I run across a private rant about how poor the online purchasing experience is for such everyday things as airline tickets (I always call the United Premier desk and talk to a real person) and car rental (ditto with Hertz). Amen. The only Web site I visit regularly is EBay, but that's only because Google hasn't figured out how to reference all that material.

So we also talked about Google. He uses the Google toolbar, I am working my way through the book "Google Hacks", and Don says it's the only thing he uses a browser for. And then - just now - I get an email about Peter Coffee's piece on Google as an OS.

What does this have to do with the smart client? Well, I also just ran across a piece saying that Windows XP is the dominent OS for accessing the Web. Followed by a Reuters piece about Longhorn.

Putting it all together, I think that the next big battle is going to be between Google and Microsoft.

3 Comments

  • We dont have to imagine a world without browsers and Web pages... we were like there before browsers and Web pages.





    The reason the browser has been so popular is because it works so well as a cross-platform universal client.





    What would be the rational/gain in giving up cross-platform universal clients?

  • Because cross-platform is a silly concept that only works on paper.





    The truth is, 98% of the world uses only two platforms (Windows and Mac). It doesn't make sense to use a crappy data entry design (the browser) just so 2% of the world can run it.


  • Standard mistake. It's not the clients that should be cross platform, it's the data. Then you can implement clients for any platform. In a network data is important, not code.

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