Kevin Werbach offers an explanation for the emerging world:

Something tells me the model of the Internet and communications world we've followed since the early 1990s may be falling appart.

The concept is that connectivity, applications, and content are distinct technical, business, and regulatory spheres. I'm one of the culprits, as an advocate of the "layered model" for Internet policy. But if you go back to Mary Meeker's seminal "Internet Report" in 1995 (written, she told me, because so many prospective investors she met on the Netscape IPO road show were completely clueless about the Internet), you'll see the same pattern: infrastructure businesses (ISPs), application businesses (search, advertising, and e-commerce), and content businesses. The only company that seriously spans all those markets today is AOL Time Warner... and look where it got them.

Soon, though, most of the major Internet players are likely to be hybrids of two or more layers. Google and eBay will be infrastructure and applications; Yahoo! and News Corp. will be applications and content; telephone, wireless, and cable operators will be infrastructure nad content; Microsoft and Time Warner will span all three levels. And that's just what we've seen announced so far. In this market, everyone is in play.
...
It does sound as though all of us excited about the "Web 2.0" vision of open standards built on top of open standards, facilitating mashups and lightweight innovations all around, might want to question our assumptions. Yes, that is where we have been heading, but it might not be where we ultimately go. If GoogleNet, SkypeBay, MSAOL, Telco Fiberia, and CableLand emerge as competing integrated fiefdoms, we'll see something more like the early 90's online services, albeit on a much bigger stage.

Newsweek has a cover story in its international edition on the future of entertainment:

Just as all politics is local, all news and entertainment is now personal—in the digital age, users can manipulate media to do what they want, when they want. Thanks to high-speed broadband pipes and peer-to-peer technology that puts more computing power in the hands of individuals, it's become much easier to create and manipulate media online. In this new world, consumers, as much as creators, are in control.

Secondly, the Internet changes the timeline of entertainment production, broadcast and consumption. Instead of a movie opening on the big screen, then trickling down to television, video and the Internet, it can appear in all formats at once, as 2929 Entertainment plans to do with new Steven Soderbergh releases. At the same time, in a world of digital choice, people can ignore your offerings, but they can also keep watching, reading or listening forever. That concept, famously dubbed the "Long Tail" by Wired editor Chris Anderson, also changes the entire economic model of entertainment, creating hugely successful niche products over longer periods of time.

WSJ writes about the finalists:

Forget, for a moment, the idea that an innovation has to be something new, either in terms of the problem it solves or when it was invented.

Just ask Mohammad Saidullah, an Indian honey seller in his 60s, who has been peddling his amphibious bicycle around the flood-prone plains of Bihar -- and once or twice across the Ganges -- for the past 30 years.

It's not much to look at -- a sky-blue tangle of spokes, paddles and wooden floats -- but it has finally gotten some recognition. Discovered by an Indian organization called the Honey Bee network, which collects data on such initiatives via a web of students, nongovernment groups and volunteers, his contraption earned Mr. Saidullah a life-time achievement award in January from India's National Innovation Foundation. And now he's one of 12 finalists for this year's Asian Innovation Awards, presented by The Asian Wall Street Journal in association with Global Entrepolis@Singapore. The awards honor people and companies who improve quality of life or business productivity.

Chris of Web Service Finder writes:

When looking at the world of web 2.0 I think that you can categorize the companies and products into a few different areas:

Data Silos:
Sites that create or originate content but do not share them openly are what I call data silos. Many of the "Web 1.0" companies fall into this area. Examples include: Match.com, Career Builder,

Web Service Providers :
Sites that expose functionality and data openly are what I call web service providers.
Examples: Google Maps, eBay API, Flickr

Data Silo Aggregator:
Sites that unify data from separate data silos into one common view.
Examples: AP News Wire (offline), Indeed.com, Oodle

Web Services Aggregators:
Sites that unify separate web services and/or data silos.
Examples: Chicago Crime Guy, Weatherbonk, Craigslist/Google maps mashup

Julian Bond thinks that Longhorn (Vista) will be the end of Microsoft.

Well I'm reading more and more about how Intel and Microsoft in conjunction with the hardware manufacturers will be bolting DRM in various forms right in the middle of the OS. I'm reading about how I won't be able to do what I want to do. The only reason I stay with XP is because so much software appears on XP first, Apple later and if you're lucky and Linux hardly at all. But if significant software I want to run is prevented from running, It's finally going to tip me over the edge to switch.

The other side to this is that MS is getting into the classic big software project mentality. Whatever the bug or feature is, it will be fixed in the version that comes out with Longhorn. Because all the software is so intimately tied to the OS, there's come a point where they can no longer ship each individual piece early and often. Everything has to wait for the big release. And that big release therefore ends up being vast and untestable. And late.

Now it looks like I'm going to be due a machine upgrade round about the time of the Longhorn release. And by chance that coincides with when Apple-Intel laptops should be available. So finally I'm being forced into making a choice that I otherwise could have put off for a bit longer. Will I stay with MS for another cycle or is this the time I jump ship? Will all the endless annoyances of windows being added to by another load of DRM and control finally tip me over the edge?

I think I'm not alone in this. A Unix based OS with a pretty face, stable drivers, and easy access to all that OSS feels awfully attractive. Just maybe a Linux distro will be as good as Mac OSX but I kind of doubt it.

In India, we now have 60 million mobile phone users. By end of 2006, this number will have reached close to 100 million. This will mean that one in 10 Indians will have the power of two-way communication with a device they always carry with them. This is one of the fundamental building blocks for bringing about the citizen participation in ensuring a better India.

The second building block is the aggregate of software tools like blogs and wikis which enable people to write and share with others. While these are for the most part Web-based, it will be increasingly possible to read their content on mobiles – and even write from the phone itself. Mobile phones equipped with cameras can be used to take pictures. Posting to photo-blogs like Flickr and using syndication technologies like RSS helps keep people abreast of what’s happening. An SMS can be sent to people whenever there is an update on specific sites or an opinion is needed.

Taken together, these technologies will help citizens collaborate much more easily. That is a step towards co-ordinating action. What is now needed is for government documents and decisions to be made publicly available. Some of this is already happening. But if citizens can be made active participants in the debate, they can help shape their own future.

India’s challenges are too big for just a handful to attempt to come up with all the right answers. If we can apply a collective mind to the problems we face – starting with helping improve the neighbourhood we live in, we will have taken a greater control in ensuring a better tomorrow.

This may seem like wishful thinking. But, keep in mind that society has never been so empowered as before in terms of having an always-on and always-available two-way communication device in the form of the mobile. Add to this the increasing number of newspapers and TV channels eager to report on local events and we have the ingredients to start bringing about change – provided we as citizens start changing our mindset and taking a more pro-active approach.

Howard Rheingold wrote in his book “Smart Mobs”: “Civilizations jump in complexity whenever a threshold for collective action is lowered. It's not just street protestors. It's science, democracy, markets, the way people meet and mate, the way people use cities and the way motor vehicles use roadways that are affected ... when mobile communication and pervasive computing enable new forms of collective action."

India is on the growth path. But that is just the beginning. We need to do a lot more to make life a delight – both for those in urban and rural India. Our problems may seem insurmountable. They may also appear as “mountains beyond mountains.” All it takes is a few to make a difference and transform neighbourhood – or, as the fight for Indian Independence showed, a nation. It is our future that is at stake here. It is we the people who have to come together, pool our intellect and efforts and build a better India.