Categories: Articles

Quickly Moving Beyond The Web Browser

Over the past few years a lot of the talk about the development of the Internet has been around wi-fi access everywhere. While we still seem to be a ways away from that, what we are seeing is a quicker shift towards Internet driven applications that are being used without the need of a browser.

Adobe Air is becoming one of the platforms by which you can download an application that is predominantly pulling the information from the Internet without having to open up a web browser. If you’re a fan of Twitter, then Tweetdeck is one of the many non-web browser based applications that is getting people excited.

It’s not just about the early adopters either.

The New York Times recently launched their Times Reader 2.0 which is based on the Adobe Air platform, and within a couple of minutes of playing with it you can begin to see how the future of online media is going to play out. The experience is both unique and compelling. In the past few years, I have been privy to some very interesting applications using these similar platforms – some of them for e-commerce, others for fashion and many that provide more powerful visualizations of data and information.

Just this week, Sean Howard (from Craphammer and now a full-time Twist Image team member) got me hooked on a Yahoo! application called, Sideline, that acts as a search, monitor and tracking application for Twitter. To get an idea of just how common these desktop driven web applications are becoming, take a look at the Google Chrome web browser. In the control panel you can easily take any one of your open tabs and turn that into an application shortcut on your desktop. Now, you don’t have to open your web browser and log into to Gmail, you can set-up the application shortcut and double-click it from your desktop as you would to start Microsoft PowerPoint.

From iPhone apps to desktop shortcuts to Adobe Air created applications, we’re starting to see the Internet everywhere.

If that doesn’t get you excited in terms of how Marketers and brands can now start creating applications that are driven by both mobile and web-based backends, I’m not sure what will. Imagine an Apple application or the Dell laptop community all right from your desktop. We got all excited about Widgets, but those were just tiny little applications that resided on your desktop with bits and bytes of info in hopes of driving consumers to a bigger and more engaging online experience, now with the advancements in desktop applications, the full brand experience can now be a quick click away… and it’s a full/enclosed experience that doesn’t compete against multiple tabs or a search box that can drive the consumer somewhere else.

It is the little things like this that are going to foster massive changes for the online experience over the next twelve months.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.