how revolutions shape the market

Filed in archive Technology on May 14, 2004

Futurist Paul Saffo in an interview with BusinessWeek:

"The media expression of the mainframe in the '60s was e-mail in 1969, but it didn't mature until it migrated to client-server computing in the '80s, which made it much cheaper to provide. The media expression of client-server was the Web in the 1990s. The Web will mature when we can take it everywhere with us and when we have peer-to-peer systems to manage all the connections [more cheaply and efficiently]."

"And it isn't about the same old Web stuff. The moment the Web fits into your pocket, you have a whole new set of applications and business opportunities that never existed before, such as location-based marketing: It's 4:30 p.m., you're walking down the street in San Francisco, your [personal data assistant] Hiptop chirps at you, you open it up, and it's an e-mail message. It's actually an electronic coupon for a Chinese restaurant a block-and-a-half away in your direction that says if you come in 15 minutes, you get half-off a Tsingtao beer and free appetizers. "