The LEGO OS

Tim O’Reilly recently wrote a very important essay, The State of the Internet Operating System. I highly recommend reading it. Tim is of course the man who coined the term Web 2.0 (don’t hate him for it) and this newest essay doesn’t seem to be an evolution of that idea but a parallel track.

It was exactly one year ago tomorrow that I wrote about social media and conversations being a new database layer on top of the old Web user interface (UI). Think about it, status updates are basically command line prompts.

At the time I was only advocating for better aggregation, curation and better user experience (UX). But inline with Tim’s essay I’d like to take my example a step further and say that if the Internet is (or will become) the new operating system then social media is the new Internet.

In Tim’s post he talks about all of the multiple computing functions that happen when you preform a search or a voice activated search on your phone or a payment over the Internet. All the moving pieces happen across multiple companies and the Internet manages all of these like your computer manages all the various drivers between software.

So where does that leave social media in relation to the new Internet OS?

Most people today (not you or me but most people) go to the Internet to find things and they use their computers native applications to create things. Increasingly people will and are creating things natively in the Web. Increasingly we are turning to social media to find things that we used to find on the Internet.

We “search” for recommendations on Facebook and Twitter. This is what makes Google nervous and why they’re bumping up their social features and acquiring companies like Aardvark.

But I’m not just talking about search. If social media has finally surpassed porn as the largest activity on the Internet, that’s saying something. How many of us have got directions from people in social media or problem solved something with a friend on Twitter?

When something goes wrong on our computer or on the Internet (or in real life), we are turning to our social channels for solutions. Sometimes that’s a support forum or a favorite how-to blog but usually it’s Twitter or Facebook.

The Internet as OS will make this easier. Aardvark is a good example of that. Curated blogs on specific products are another example of that. (Side note we still need a good layer over comment data. Backtype and Echo are both a good start but not there yet.)

Social Networks Are The New Browser

If social media is the new Internet then social networks like Twitter and Facebook are the new Internet browser. To me this is the best analogy to the battle Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, MySpace and many other smaller players are fighting. This also highlights the mounting tension between social clients like Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Brizzly.

But we’re not there yet. Just like Internet browsers all have to accept common protocols, social networks also need to learn to play nice. New protocols like Salmon that are trying to break down the siloed walled gardens of the big social networks are an important step in this direction. Without cross platform capabilities we’ll be living in an AOL Internet world.Similar Posts:

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TG Daily – 2009: Year of mergers, platform changes and conservation

Analyst Opinion – 2009 is shaping up to be a nasty year, in fact it looks like 2009 and 2010 will be years we’ll want to look back on as briefly as possible. But these years will also clear out of lot of the dead and dying companies that have been clogging up the market. I believe the U.S. and the technology industry will both emerge stronger than they went into this cycle. Let’s look at some of the trends that likely will dominate 2009 and a few of the bellwether companies that currently define the tech market.

Technorati Tags: 2009 predictions, mergers, netbooks, smartphones, Linux, energy,

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But, when it comes to the technical aspects of Linux, I’m a total n00b. So any claims I make about Linux are probably not 100% perfectly accurate and I have learned that die hard Linux users are sticklers for accuracy.

If you’ve been following this blog recently you probably know I’ve been trying out the Ubuntu (a type of Linux)desktop operating system on an old laptop of mine.

I love it. It’s not for everyone just yet, but it’s really, really close. There are some issues with multi-media because Linux is OpenSource and licensed under the GPL which requires that it and any changes made to it stay Open. It also doesn’t help that Flash and other vendors treat Linux users like they only own a marginal percent of the market (oh wait they do). But it’s growing.

LinuXP

I think that Ubuntu, because of it’s current momentum, is poised to give both Gates and Jobs a run for their money. And this is why; check out these two concurrent posts on Digg.

Why use Linux? Windows XP fans don’t want it to XPire.

• There is a large group of people that don’t want to switch to Vista.
• Many of us aren’t ready to buy our *cool* from Steve Jobs yet.
• In my opinion Ubuntu is the Linux answer for the XP crowd.

What Linux needs to do is grow beyond their early adopters (not abandon them but looking past them). Just like Mac had to get past their early die hard fans and move into the main stream. They also need to figure out a way to provide the same level of usability that you get with MS and Mac. This means integrating propriatery software.

I realize that to the die hard Linux user this is sacrilege, but that’s ok by me. I like Linux, I support what they stand for but I’m not a purist. If someone else wants to make their product proprietary, that’s fine too, I have a choice.

Desktop Linux needs to cross the chasm, and I think it’s ready.

Microsoft is very vulnerable now, thanks to Vista and I don’t think that the Apple value proposition will scale. Now’s the perfect time for some disruptive innovation. Linux already proved it could do it on the server side, now they just need to recreate that on the desktop – and by desktop I really mean laptop

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