The Six Webs of Bill Joy

I refuse to install Real so I haven't watched the presentation, but, Bill Joy gave a talk about the future of the web at an MIT event.

From the summary:

"Joy and his colleagues grasped early on the impact the Internet would have on both computing and entertainment. Back in the 90s, they decided to play out how technologies imbedded in daily life would evolve under the influence of the internet. They envisioned the “far” web, as defined by the typical TV viewer experience; the “near” web, or desktop computing; the “here” web, or mobile devices with personal information one carried all the time; the “weird” web, characterized by voice recognition systems; the “B2B” web of business computers dealing exclusively with each other; and the “D2D” web, of intelligent buildings and cities.

Joy sees the six webs as a great organizing principle for understanding how the internet will continue to change. He believes the “here” web will figure most prominently in our lives, with its “nomadic idea that instead of being tethered to an office, we carry around things of most interest to us.” He notes the increasing “cleavage between entertainment authored for the ‘here’ and ‘far’ webs.” The latter is dominated by such corporate interests as game companies intent on copy protection and rights management, while the “more anarchic world” of the internet leads to more interesting content, such as personal publishing, housed best on the “here” web. Says Joy, “Doing things with people you know through a small screen makes enormous sense.”