Ubiquity

In his self-interview, Should You Buy Facebook Stock?, Jonah Peretti gives this short story of the Web:

When the world shifted from portals to search, Google was the big winner. Now the shift is from search to social, with Facebook as the big winner. The mega-trend is Portals → Search → Social. That's the big defining shift on the web and we are at the very beginning of the transition to social.

I'll hazard to claim the next mega-trend will be Ubiquity. And it will probably slide into being before we've become fully accustomed to Social. I think about what's next for the Web and I see a transition from needing a phone in your pocket to connect to being able to connect everywhere on most anything: watches (like Pebble), car-dashboards, mirrors . . . but not glasses. People want the internet in their glasses like they want flies landing on their noses. Sorry Google. Obviously, this is the future of Minority Report, and I think we're all collectively leaning into it.

One of my most pressing first-world problems is having to pull my phone out of my pocket every time I get a text, or I want to check the weather. If I had a car, I'm sure I'd want all my notifications to appear on my dash so I wouldn't need to fish for my phone wherever it might be resting. I also want everything connected to the Web to control from my devices: the coffee maker, the thermostat (ahem, Nest), lights, etc.

It seems only Apple is really in position to make this happen. But I would hope that others are working on it, and I'm sure they are. There are extra problems involved, like log-ins and security concerns. So it won't be simple. I just think it's inevitable; the Web will be everywhere.