Llego vía SmartMobs a este artículo del USAToday, «Next big thing: the Web as your servant«, muy interesante y muy visionario. La idea es como gracias a todos los cambios habidos últimamente, la Web se ha convertido en una especie de «sopa primordial» de la que surgirá, está surgiendo, algo que no tiene nombre todavía (y no se le puede llamar Internet 2, porque está demasiado visto) pero que tiene cierto aspecto y prestaciones de un «mayordomo de lujo». Para muestra, esta parte del artículo:
«One example, culled from interviews with executives and entrepreneurs across the tech industry, might be a service we’ll call Travel Butler, or TB for short. It doesn’t exist, but services like it are a gleam in the eye of companies ranging from Orbitz to AT&T.
Let’s say it’s 4 p.m. TB knows you have a flight scheduled for 6 p.m. because it regularly prowls the Web sites you use for travel and found you booked a ticket on Orbitz. TB can tell, perhaps by checking your online calendar, that you’re at a meeting downtown.
The service cross-checks with a map service such as MapQuest to find the route you’d have to take to the airport. Once it knows that, TB goes out on the network to monitor traffic on your route — and finds the streams of data on the Department of Transportation Web site, which monitors road cameras and sensors.
TB might see that accidents have backed up traffic for miles. It sends you a message, which finds you on your BlackBerry e-mail, saying that to make your flight, you’d have to leave now. TB also shows you an Orbitz listing of later flights.
You decide to go on a later flight, so you click on the one you want. TB rebooks you, sends an e-mail to your spouse and contacts the car service in your destination city to change the time to pick you up.»
En el fragmento se ve el énfasis en servicios, no en tecnologías: esas tecnologías son necesarias para que este tipo de cosas sean posibles, pero la gente no compra tecnologías, compra servicios y experiencias.
El artículo es largo, pero vale la pena.
