Web conversations I would like to see more of

So since my last post was a bit critical of a series of discussions that I view to be increasingly less useful, I hope to outline in this post some discussions and issues I think are useful and can lead to a series of productive engagements.

Reframing the conversation around web technologies is a good first step.  I hope we break out of this “versioning” approach as I think we are dealing with a series of reflexive and orthogonal design issues and not  a linear progression of a massive whole system.  That is to say that the Internet and the Web’s evolution, like most ecologies or complex systems, can't be understood as system that will progress along one linear vector.  It is more useful to instead look at a series of issues that need to converge around cohesive and representative “architectures”.

Here are a couple vectors to consider, which are by no means comprehensive or even correct.  They just propose multiple narratives that may inform how we consider, define and build next generation technologies.

The contractual web net

The contracts around trust, governance, authentication, providence and privacy need serious consideration.  Web architectures have been mostly put at the service of consumer applications (or so it would seem) however there is a different set of enterprise requirements, most of which have existed in the enterprise architecture and SOA  design space. If we want to talk about Enterprise or Gov 2.0  these conversations need to be front and center.

Even now there are strangely competing design patterns in these two spheres in areas such as identity, authentication and integration and others. Examples of these include identity and authorization (openid and ouath vs SAML implementations) publish and subscribe (eai buses and message oriented middleware vs xmpp pub sub and callbacks) integration and services orientation (SOA and Web Services vs rest and web services).  It is unclear whether or not solutions in the enterprise can push out.  At the same time efforts to extend the web so as to be usable in these enterprise contexts need quite a bit of work. Additionally we are also seeing the emergence of hybrid architectures that support different types of contractual arrangements for the distribution of computing capability.

The changing landscape of data and economic transactions of the web, present us with problems we have yet to figure out.   It introduces third parties to relationships that were usually symmetrical and trust based and interweaves networks of contracts and relationships that are difficult to understand much less manage.  We need the mechanisms to get to a contractual web, and many of those are not simply about technology, though their needs to be quite a bit of technological work.

Several paths need to evolve, and they need to address a key concern, the nature of autonomy in a network.  Ideally, the contractual web would allow for complete ownership of ones technology stack as a point of logical departure.  This ought include mechanisms for managing ones own data, and data provisioning and dissemination.  We don’t yet have that type of data networking technology.  I can see a lifetime of research and work going into addressing these very broad questions.

The contextual web net

The web is too noisy and getting nosier all the time.  Even people in one little enclave of the web like twitter, cant keep up with it and ironically rely on computational algorithms and bots to filter human information.  I think good communications technology is about getting people to connect in the most effective ways possible and that is going to require a much more granular web that places people at the right control points on information flows and leaves for computing the tasks it is good for.  This is by no means an easy problem.

There are many approaches being developed to these problems and they ought be of interest, even if it all becomes the magic that most end users of technologies wont ever “see”.  Building the web of data is apart of this problem where to quote Jeff Jonas “the data finds the data and the context finds the user”(pdf).  Linked data is one example of an approach to part of this problem that address ways to represent data. Please note I haven't called this the semantic web.  That term carries all sorts of connotations that often confuse the intent around these efforts (even though a lot of this work has been done under that umbrella).  Ultimately this problem is one about tools for negotiating and defining context.  These questions require thought about identity, social space, data representation and reconciliation, (place in Netdoms to use White’s framework),  and physical space.  

Clearly the contextual web is related to the contractual web.  But where as one the contractual web is about bounding legitimate relationships, the contextual web is about enabling them.  In a way one works forward, the other backwards

The adaptive web net

How long is the Web/Internet going to be around?  Its an interesting question.  Dan Bricklin has written about how we might think about making it happen.  In order to do so we have to build an adaptive web, or perhaps build within the context of an adaptive web.  This means new understands of modularity and economies of substitution, efforts toward portability and digital migration, models of risk that can handle digital epidemics and continuous failure, adaptive infrastructure and many other areas.  Of course all these issues have to be dealt with on evolutionary continua.  However they are basic questions of sustainability, and we should recognize that the digital age will by no means be immune to threats and pressures just as industrial models now suffer.


The inclusive web net

I think a key issue within the web is about figuring out how to make it inclusive in a broad sense; generative and hackable for everyone.  This includes issues like internationalization, localization, accessibility (often an afterthought only applied in government contracts as an afterthought because its one of this hard to do things markets don’t sustain very well) and education.  Part of the issue will be accepting and bringing into the web cultural metaphors and models very different from the ones that have traditionally served as the basis for the invention of the web. (What, for example, does an office mean to a goat herder in Madagascar?  Yet this too is and will continue to be a web citizen)

Making the web inclusive is going to be hard continuous process. ICT4D (internet communications technology four development) and the related issues will be filled with tumult and conflict, but I hope to see progress in a truly generative manner that doesn’t lead to a kind of digital serfdom, but instead establishes the foundations for entry into fair and free markets for as many as possible.

Anyway enough for now.  I look forward to diving into many of these issues more deeply as well as bringing out some others.