The next chapter for the Internet is coming

The Internet has evolved from a military information machine (1987), to an academic resource (1991), to the information superhighway (1995), to a commercial publishing platform (1998), to a flop (2000), to an interactive connection engine (2005).

So what’s next? What comes after the so-called Web 2.0 era?

Whatever it is, it seems likely that the biggest player in the game, Google, will have something to do with it. And my guess is that Chrome will too, Google’s latest innovation.

Chrome currently is a mere web browser. It does the same job as Internet Explorer (Microsoft) and Firefox (Mozilla), or for that matter, Safari on a Mac. The purpose of a browser is to bring the Internet to you, on whatever device you use, be it a computer, a PDA, an iphone… without a browser, a computer is a stand-alone device with no global interactivity and without the web.

So Google’s plan is to change all that. With Chrome OS, it aims to turn the model on its head. i.e. instead of running a browser on Windows, the browser *is* Windows. The browser itself is the operating system and all the programs we currently use on our local machines, like word processors, spreadsheets and email clients, are actually run far away on webservers.

If you have an account with Google’s mail service – Gmail – you might already be familiar with the Documents feature. With this, you can accomplish almost everything MS Word and MS Excel do without paying for them, all through your web browser. And if your web browser happens to be Google Chrome, then you might experience a slightly faster service using these tools than with other browsers.

With the backdrop of these services behind us, its not difficult to see where things might lead. New lightweight computers – netbooks – are already on the market. At the moment they are loaded with Microsoft Windows, like virtually every other PC which is sold. But in the future, it looks likely they, and other light-weight devices, will come pre-loaded with Chrome OS. When this happens, we will all be using remote applications and storage to generate and save our files.

And when that happens, a new level of interaction and search will become available. One which makes the current method of Internet search almost, but not entirely, obsolete.

Imagine, for example, what the implications would be if whenever you saved a document you could choose whether to make it public to your associates, to senior management, to your friends or to the whole world. And when you save it, that’s it. Its done. You don’t have to FTP it to a website, or publish it as a blog post or attach it to an email.

And when you have saved a document like that, it becomes immediately searchable, but only to the group you made it available to.

The broader implications of this are huge. Especially when you consider all the new devices which are bound to come through for viewing the Internet with. When local processing power isn’t necessary, we could begin using a device like the current ebook readers from Sony and Amazon to do all our work on. They, at least, have a big enough screen. Alternatively, we may find technology leans towards paper-like screens which are foldable yet still touch-sensitive and equipped with high-speed wireless access to the Internet.

There will always be corporate websites. But in this new Internet generation, they will need to be a lot more interactive than they are now. The traditional website-as-a-brochure method will simply not be enough for companies to compete, and for organisations to work, efficiently.

But there are still some crucial outcomes required for all this to become reality:

1. Can Google really get away with it, or will its monopoly be too much for the world to swallow?

2. Will security issues prevent it catching on?

3. Will people be ready enough for it?

4. Will bandwidth speeds be fast enough?

5. Will the broadband network cover enough of the population?

In my next post, I will aim to answer each of these. If you have any more, please post them in a comment below.

Hollars Diggs Yahoo!

The exodus at Yahoo! continues with Kiersten Hollars, its Communications & Communities Director leaving to head up Digg’s communications team. Hollars was previously in Brad Garlinghouse’s department, but he announced his departure in June. Before him, she reported to Bradley Horowitz but he left for Google in February.

This is the second reported departure from Yahoo! today. More are expected.

Trinity Mirrors The Problem

The recent difficulties at Trinity Mirror, Europe’s largest publisher, are indicitive of the extraordinary economic shift, and events, Read more

Yahoo! Rejects Another Microsoft Bid.

Yesterday Yahoo! rejected another Microsoft Bid. This time it was driven by Carl Icahn through Microsoft chief, Steve Ballmer.

Read more

Icahn’s Yahoo! Board Announced

Latest news in the saga for dominance of Yahoo!:

Carl Icahn has announced the nominees for his board of Yahoo!:

Mark Cuban – Sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo! in 1999 for $8.1 billion in stock.

John Chapple – Former CEO of Nextel Partners, with a telecommunications investment fund.

Lucian Bebchuk – Harvard Law professor and director of Harvard’s program on corporate governance

Edward Meyer – Former CEO of Grey Global Group, the worldwide advertising agency.

Keith Meister – Icahn’s own vice chairman. He was also added to Motorola’s board last month as part of the agreement to avoid a proxy battle with Icahn.

Brian Posner - Former CEO of asset management firm, Clearbridge Advisors LLC.

Adam Dell - brother of Michael, the founder of Dell Computers. He was previously a major shareholder of HotJobs.com, which Yahoo! bought for $439 million in 2002.

Robert Shaye – founder of New Line Cinema and still co-CEO.

Frank Biondi Jr – Former CEO of Viacom Inc. Also a director of Amgen, Cablevision Systems, Hasbro, The Bank of New York Mellon and Seagate Technology.

And the tenth member:
Carl Icahn himself – 72-year-old investor, and corporate shaker.

Icahn’s battle begins

As anticipated, Carl Icahn has begun his proxy battle with Yahoo!

In an open letter to Yahoo chairman, Roy Bostock, Icahn said the board had “acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft. It is obvious that Microsoft’s bid of $33 per share is a superior alternative than Yahoo’s prospects on a stand alone basis.” Read more

Miller Backs Icahn’s Yahoo! Proxy Battle

Further to my post yesterday about the Yahoo! saga, I see that Bill Miller, who as portfolio manager at Legg Mason controls more than 6% of Yahoo!’s shares, welcomed Carl Icahn among the senior shareholders yesterday.

“To the extent he can get the parties back to the table I’d be all in favour of that”, he said.

Miller’s endorsement indicates a significant portion of Yahoo! is leaning towards the Microsoft deal.

It is one thing for a board to have pressure from its shareholders, yet another to have that pressure intensified by a rush of new shareholders.

Yahoo!’s shareprice will start at $27.14 this morning. Interesting to see how it moves through the day…

This is how it stands currently, and a chart of the past 5 days (delayed 15 mins)…:

<a href=”http://finance.yahoo.com” mce_href=”http://finance.yahoo.com”>Yahoo! Finance</a><br /><a href=”http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=YHOO/” mce_href=”http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=YHOO/”>Quote for YHOO/</a>

Although we’re told that Microsoft have given no indication that they will resume talks with Yahoo!, Icahn now has the power to replace the Yahoo! board with one which will be more open to the takeover bid.

Bill Miller’s endorsement means that few would stand in his way if he chose to do that, but he hasn’t got long.

The news over the next few days will be vital to the future of the whole Internet industry. Watch this space…

Carl Icahn Is Raiding Yahoo!

If you’re here seeking ways to get a few hundred more visitors to your web business, great. You’ll find there are plenty of traffic, and list, building tips and techniques here. But spare a moment too, to put this Internet Industry into perspective. Something big is about to happen.

Many senior Internet Industry exectutives and investors are currently waiting to hear the decision of this man…

No matter how small or big you consider your online business to be – (it may be so small that you don’t even think you have one – or so big that you’re even involved in this latest saga I’m discussing here) – either way, I’ll be interested to hear what you think of Carl Icahn’s recent move on Yahoo!

In the 10 days since Microsoft pulled out of of its $47.3bn offer, which valued Yahoo! at $33-a-share, Carl Icahn has bought a stake of approximately 3.6%.

Considering his purchase price was somewhere around $25, a 3.6% stake will have cost him around $1.2 billion.

This is a man with a personal fortune of $14 billion or so, so pitting 1.2 of it on Yahoo! in its current crisis is bold. Perhaps we should expect nothing less from the real-life Gordon Gekko of Wall Street… Who remembers his infamous hostile takeover of TWA in 1985?

But there is something very significant about buying such a stake at this time: It gives him the option to launch a proxy battle and ultimately to remove members from Yahoo!’s board in favour of directors who support his own views.

And guess what they are…

To accept Microsoft’s offer.

If he can sell his Yahoo! shares for $33 then his personal gain will be around half a billion dollars. And it could all happen in a matter of days.

Perhaps its a shame he doesn’t have better intentions for the troubled pioneering search engine than to feed his bulging pockets.

Or perhaps we should just celebrate and cheer-on such flagrant capitalism…

Lets watch what happens over the coming days – if nothing else, his move is certain to bring the players back to the table, and it will make interesting viewing…

What’s your view? What have I missed? Leave your comment below…

Does Malaysia know what its sitting on?

I’m here in Kuala Lumpur for Malaysia’s World Internet Summit and I’ll be speaking later today about the exciting potential for Viral Spiral Marketing in this country.

I’ll be interested to learn what delegates think of their impending position in the Internet Marketing community because it seems to me that Malaysia and Singapore are sitting on the mother of all gold mines in this industry.

Today’s newspapers spoke again of the impact on the world of increasing oil prices. For the third time in a generation, we are told, we are heading towards an oil crisis with global implications as the price per barrel teases the symbolic $100 mark.

But this time it is different. This time the price increase is driven by demand. Previously it has been caused by political pressure or constricted supply either in the Middle East, or Russia.

China’s consumption of oil has trebled since 1980. The current oil price, and potential increases in the future, are in correlation with the rise of the middle class in China and India as it steadily replaces mass poverty.

Look at these charts to see how oil consumption in China compares with Europe and the Americas:

And what else, aside of oil, do middle class consumers need?

Information… The Internet.

I believe the staggering increase in oil shown in China over the past 20 years is nothing compared to the forthcoming increase in Internet use in that country.

And when it comes to Internet Marketing, who in the world is best placed to teach them?

The cultural and language differences between China and the western world make it difficult for the main-stays of Internet Marketing to have a role in China’s growth. It seems more likely that it will come from her neighbours, in particular Malaysia and Singapore.

I’ll be speaking about this later today to the delegates of World Internet Summit Malaysia, and I will be interested to gather how prepared they are for their role in China’s Internet growth.