Riding the Fifth Wave

We have all been feeling it, a change in the landscape. The term web 2.0 has been used a lot, but the most appropriate one that sums it up for me if the “fifth wave”.

We have had mainframes, minicomputers, pcs, and client-server/Internet. Nominally these could be called waves 1 to 4. The fifth wave is all the enabling technologies that have become pervasive. Broadband, always on connectivity, open standards, easy to use tools, scripting, J2EE etc. When all these tools are put in the hands of of people with ideas and allows them to implement those ideas we have the fifth wave.

Fair enough not everyone can feel the wave yet. It may be more of a settling of the levels. However, it is clear that there are platforms and avenues for the new ideas. People remember the dot.com era, so we have the balance of ‘yes thats very good but will it work’. The important thing is that there are enough of us around who understand what the wave is and can help generate those innovative solutions to problems. I think its fair to say there are here in Hursley.

Ian Hughes – ( Consulting IT Specialist Emerging Technology Services, IBM Hursley)

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Director of metaverse and emerging tech consultancy http://www.feedingedge.co.uk Former IBM Consulting IT Specialist with 18 years at the company Games player epredator xbox live tag. epredator potato in second life

3 thoughts on “Riding the Fifth Wave

  1. The other thing I think I like about the 5th wave/Web 2.0 is that it’s all web native. You don’t need applets or plugins or hassle it all works directly with the browser. Even where Flash is used it’s started to be better integrated with the rest of the site, so you don’t know you’re even using Flash. Flickr is the best example of this I can think of.

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