Goodbye to Web 2.0, Welcome Web 3.0 (taking your webapps offline)
It’s very obvious where Google is going with Google Gears – they are offering developers to take their web applications available offline. Isn’t that a smart and bold idea? It is! And probably the best thing since Avantgo. This will now offer users (with limited Internet connection) to sync-and-go. Google Reader now offers this functionality by the way.
Having Google Gears installed on your computer means a lot to people living in areas where Internet availability is still scarce.
Google Gears also enables the road warrior to sync common offline corporate applications like a contacts manager (Plaxo or Highrise offline), rss feeds (Google Reader), marketing/sales leads management, todo lists (tada list), project management (Basecamp), etc. This offline service has been available to PDA (personal digital assistant) users a long time ago (like Avantgo who has been offering offline content).
It will now enable web applications developers to produce offline applications that can sync-and-go and extend their existing ones to be available offline.
When offline web applications becomes mainstream, users can use them even when there is an Internet outage, a virus outbreak on the server, a server crash or even the worst things like Cyber Terrorism. And according to the Business Roundtable’s 2006 report, a lot of businesses are not even prepared for such attacks. Having your web application work offline in these kind of scenario is vital to what they call business continuity.
Still don’t know the cost of an outage? Here, a very old (year 2000) guestimate of an outage cost:
* Brokerage operations $6,450,000
* Credit card authorization $2,600,000
* Ebay (1 outage 22 hours) $225,000
* Amazon.com $180,000
* Package shipping services $150,000
* Home shopping channel $113,000
* Catalog sales center $90,000
* Airline reservation center $89,000
* Cellular service activation $41,000
* On-line network fees $25,000
* ATM service fees $14,000
Source: InternetWeek 4/3/2000 + Fibre Channel: A Comprehensive Introduction, R. Kembel 2000, p.8.  based on a survey done by Contingency Planning Research.”
So, how much do you think an hour’s outage it is now? Maybe 10x or 20x or even 100x? What if you can save any transaction from a website even if it was offline? Then sync it when you become available online. Wouldn’t that be kinda cool?
I would think having your existing app offline with a thorough understanding of the subject is the holy grail of web applications.
What this means to corporate executives is they can now not worry of having those frequent outage from lousy Internet Service Providers which we all know are abundant.
So, welcome to the Web 3.0 people and say goodbye to Web 2.0. That (web 2.0) will be a thing of the past from hereon.
–aj
UPDATE (06/05/2007): Remember the Milk (GTD webapp) – takes it offline!
UPDATE (08/06/2007): GOOGLE CEO Eric Schmidt Gives His Definition Of Web 3.0!
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June 3rd, 2007 at 12:11 am
OMG! We are truly living in fast pace world. ;D I don’t want to get left behind!
June 4th, 2007 at 1:59 am
astig ung features kung saan pwede mo i-store locally ung mga relational databases., etc,…
pano ung synchronization
June 5th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Isn’t this a step backward from the current trend? The web should foster interconnectivity, and that is what the Web2.0 did better than its predecessor. The mere thought of going offline seem to go against this principle. Just my 2 cents.
June 5th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
@phektus: it is not taking your webapps permanently offline, it is making them available offline. this gives you the best of both worlds.
June 9th, 2007 at 3:05 am
nice 1 sir AJ, it’s like ‘looking backward then moving forward again’
June 26th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
@aj: I do understand that sir. What I understand about Web 2.0 is that it is a more dynamic version of the web and because of that more activities are now done using the Net. That would mean that Web2.0 made people rely less on their desktop applications. If we give them the best of both worlds, that’s a bit of going back and forward, like xavthine said. I would say that if ever there is a Web3.0 phenomenon, it would be a total abandon of desktop applications and have them served online. Heck, that might even include the operating system! Well, again, that’s just how I see it, but congratulations on thinking this out.