In An Ambient Future, I had written about how Google was potentially poised for something really interesting because technically, it had things in place to harness mobile, social and sensor data and overlay it with machine learning and AI. An early version of how this data could be surfaced contextually and be shown in an interface would be Google Now, as Christian Hernandez had pointed out. And that was why I was quite surprised and dismayed when I read that most of the team that had been working on Google Now had left!
The larger context though is about content discovery and two possible approaches to it – destination (platform?) and feed. I remember reading Neil Perkin’s post on the subject last year (it’s a fascinating rabbit hole of related reads, you’ve been warned!) and it has had me thinking ever since, especially in recent times, with apps increasingly replacing the traditional website as a destination. So far, the feed largely served as a distribution method to destination, but I believe it is no longer that simple on the web, let alone mobile.
I have seen at least two connected aspects in this regard. The first is feed based – the evolution of the notification. Neil’s post also brings up Paul Adams’ point of (app) notifications evolving to a form where one can take an action directly on it without going to an app. To go even further, in another post, Paul also writes about child cards – embedded cards within a parent card which allows you to experience an app without installing it. This path relegates the app from its current status. It becomes a means. Towards the end of the post, Paul leaves us with a few questions, the first of which is whether all this will happen at an app, notification or OS level, and the second is the schema of the streams – single/multiple, and if multiple work/friends etc. The last question Paul asks is whether it will be owned by a company (eg. Google, Apple) or will it be interoperable systems.
That leads us to the next aspect – destination based. Messaging apps as a mega destination. There are entire ‘economies’ inside messenger apps. (Facebook’s M, and my post from earlier) A recent Tech Crunch article also brings up the same thing and brings out quite a few other interesting perspectives as well. Arguably, these apps are themselves a destination but because of the sheer volume and variety of activities that happen within, I am classifying them as feeds. A related, interesting perspective I read recently was from Rob Norman, who said that there will be a consolidation in the app space, with a few companies dominating. I think that’s a fierce competition not just at the app level but at the OS level as well.
Both aspects lead me to wonder if we are actually moving towards a role reversal! What we call a destination now (app) might be a feed from which content is pushed outwards to multiple destinations. And what we call the feed will actually be the destination where the application of the content will happen. This feed would be made up of what Paul calls ‘atomic units of content’ that can reside on multiple interfaces – mobile, wearable, television, and so on. The feed, therefore would increasingly become ambient.
I loved a Paul Adams’ phrase used – a system of objects with relationships between them. It reminds me of the original version of the web. Almost as though living out the adage “the more things change..” This evolution is happening at a dizzy pace, and that’s what makes it all so exciting!