I like to think that Mosaic is a first-generation example of the next stage in software development, which I call “information ware,” where the software simply provides a frame in which the real action happens. That real action is provided by ‘user-level’ instructions embedded in documents.
Predictor: O'Reilly, Tim
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article he wrote for InfoWorld, Tim O’Reilly talks about Mosaic and the Internet’s future: ”Viola is a more powerful environment than Mosaic, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see commercial packages based on Viola take over from Mosaic at some point. In short, I think that Mosaic will be surpassed, but the fundamental structure of the Web will be the foundation for the next wave of Internet-access tools. Mosaic launched the Web to wide notice, but it was no more responsible for the success of the Web than Ed Krol’s book [The Whole Earth User’s Guide and Catalog] was for the success of the Internet … I like to think that Mosaic is a first-generation example of the next stage in software development, which I call ‘information ware,’ where the software simply provides a frame in which the real action happens. That real action is provided by ‘user-level’ instructions embedded in documents. I see this in hypermedia environments like the Web, but also in the ways that spreadsheets and databases are rapidly becoming frames for dynamic-information templates that are not themselves software, at least not in the traditional sense.”
Biography:Tim O’Reilly was founder and first president of O’Reilly & Associates, a computer-book-publishing company that helped popularize the Internet in the decade of the 1990s. His Global Network Navigator site (GNN, which was sold to America Online in September 1995) was the first Web portal and one of the initial commercial sites on the World Wide Web. He received InfoWorld’s Industry Achievement Award in 1998 for his advocacy on behalf of the Open Source community. He served on the board of trustees for the Internet Society and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (Entrepreneur/Business Leader.)
Date of prediction: June 2, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software
Name of publication: InfoWorld
Title, headline, chapter name: The Web Behind Mosaic
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=a66441b47c7e56b2cd5c7f5b54ad6466&_docnum=18&wchp=dGLbVlz-lSlAl&_md5=bf6cf6db2c499758d9eb0ebf7a40f330
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Schmidt, Nicholas