Context in the Future

The strongest argument for a centralized personal account that is device-decentralized is the elimination of redundancy. Read that again.

I’m claiming (without prior research) that holistic web services are most efficiently disbursed through a monopolistic provider.

• The simple principle of this is that you don’t want to remember web addresses, account names and passwords. It’s a big hassle to check tons of sites all the time. Email notification, RSS, and widgets currently help with this, but a central system is better at it
  • There is evidence of this. Look at portal sites. I’m more likely to use a Google service than an external one, even if the Google features are lacking — if it means I only have to go to one site instead of two
  • Providers (esp. Google) are not using predatory tactics, but are rather naturally gaining comprehensive market share. Yes, the long tail is important, but everything on the web is still bunching up
• The entire concept of media is built around context

Future media solutions will know a user’s background knowledge — and leave out redundant information.

• If I read an article about America, the content provider doesn’t have to assume I know when Columbus sailed the ocean blue – they’ll KNOW I know it, because their central system told me.
• In order for this power to work, it must be tied into almost my entire media experience. That is why it will not be stored on a local device.