(by Om Malik): Almost six months ago, I fell into a conversation with Anil Dash, a long time blogger and an expert on many things tech. We discussed micro-clients and their role in the future of content. The conversation started because almost seven years ago, in 1997 I wrote a piece for Forbes.com (now lost in the archives somewhere) about my first experiment to build a custom home-page. However, Yahoo and Lycos did not power it, but I got somewhere. A local version of my address book, calendar and other apps were perfect but were available only on my desktop. I wanted to take it everywhere, but had failed. Dash, a fellow New Yorker (though not exiled to San Francisco like yours truly), had written a very interesting piece, Introducing the Microcontent Client, on the future of contents and micro clients. (It is a must read if you have not read it so far.)
The microcontent client is an extensible desktop application based around standard Internet protocols that leverages existing web technologies to find, navigate, collect, and author chunks of content for consumption by either the microcontent browser or a standard web browser. The primary advantage of the microcontent client over existing Internet technologies is that it will enable the sharing of meme-sized chunks of information using a consistent set of navigation, user interface, storage, and networking technologies. In short, a better user interface for task-based activities, and a more powerful system for reading, searching, annotating, reviewing, and other information-based activities on the Internet.
Work pressure put it on the low-hertz part of the brain. Up until now, when I read an October 10, 2003 piece by my colleague Owen Thomas, titled, “Apple Takes a Bite of XML“. (sub. req)
You might think the iTunes Music Store is just a successful way to sell songs online. But its real lesson may be how corporations will develop applications in the near future.
Thomas discusses how successful Apple has been with its iTunes Music Store. Well I could barely suppress a yawn. And then
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