Burton Group Catalyst EuropeBarcelona 10-12 Oct 2006

Greg Lloyd – President & Co-FounderTraction Software

grl@tractionsoftware.com

The return of interactive hypermedia, orThe Triumph of Ted Nelson

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Hypermedia

• Ted Nelson coined the term Hypertext 40 years ago - as a special case of what he called interactive Hypermedia

• Widgets and Web 2.0 interface techniques now provide the flash

• And the Web provides the context …

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Ladies and gentlemen, the age of prestidigitative presentation and publishing is about to begin. Palpitating presentations, screen-scribbled, will dance to your desire, making manifest the many mysteries of winding wisdom. But if we are to rehumanize an increasingly brutal and disagreeable world, we must step up our efforts. And we must hurry. Hurry. Step right up.

Theodor H. Nelson, “Barnum-Tronics.”Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin, Dec 1970, 12–15.

From: Theodor Nelson, Computer Lib / Dream Machines 1974

4 From: Theodor Nelson, Computer Lib / Dream

Machines 1974

5 From: Theodor Nelson, Computer Lib / Dream

Machines 1974

6 Ref: Theodor Nelson, Computer Lib / Dream

Machines 1974

7 Ref: Theodor Nelson, Literary Machines et al

1981-1995

Web Widgets

Fuse or link to data anywhere on the public or

private web

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Weatherbonk mashup:Google MapsWeather RadarWeb cam

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Flyspy mashup:Collect pricing feedsGraph 30 day patternsBuy when price is lowest

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YouTube WidgetInline videofrom Web sourcegiven video’s ID

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Inline Section WidgetDynamically updated list of related content

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Weather Widgetspecify zipcode

Text WidgetLook for text pattern, andCreate a live hyperlinke.g. UPS tracking codeor invoice numberor part number (launch CAD viewer)

Web Applications

Browser basedSimple to use

“Rich” enough for most folk

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ZimbraMS Outlook cloneFor 80% of Outlook

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Writely [Google]MS Word CloneFor the 20% of Wordpeople use

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Google SpreadsheetsMS Excel CloneFor most of what non-MBA’s useevery day

Web solutions

Easy to fuse or link dataSeparately written applications or

servicesConsistent authentication

generally required

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Web integration of CI data gathering and analysis / dissemination applications

• Robot scans thousands of sites• Looks for new content based on programmed rules (e.g. look for listed drug name AND price)

• Robot records what it finds in blog• Humans can quickly review, annotate and analyze robot findings

• Robot repeats scan every day, week, or month based on rules specified by CI customer

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Automatically monitor thousands of web sites for new products, pricing

etc.

Automatically post relevant clips to a CI Blog, along with date, time and web address of captured data.

CI Staff can use inline comments and labels to analyze and decide what to post for broad use.

Respond in hours or minutes - not days or weeks.

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Monitor public and private sites for adverse event reports

Automatically post relevant clips to Adverse Events Blog, along with date, time and web address of captured data.

MR and CI Staff can use inline comments and labels to analyze and decide what to post for broad use.

Respond in hours or minutes - not days or weeks.

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Old style solutions

• Thick Client - comfortable• Siloed Data - fat vendor heaven

• No Context - user hell• Arm and leg integration

Float a new bond issue to pay for ERP ?

Sell a Division to pay for CRM ?

How will it look on the Annual Report ?

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New style solutions

• Browser based - thin and simple• Easily fuse or link Web data x applications

• Work in context (by time and subject), not in a box

• Shave and a haircut integrationIs it OK if we have it by next Thursday ?

Web 2.0 ? Isn’t this what Web 1.0 was supposed to be ?

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Conclusions

• People’s expectations of what is easy and possible are now set by what they use every day on the public Web

• A “Web 2.0” style UI is good enough for most applications and solutions

• Working outside the application box is immensely valuableWait ‘til you see Stretchtext™!Ted Nelson Computer Lib 1971

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References

• Theodor Nelson, Computer Lib / Dream Machines, 1974 (republished 1987 Microsoft Press)

• Theodor Nelson, Xanalogical Structure, Needed Now More than Ever: Parallel Documents, Deep Links to Content, Deep Versioning and Deep Re-Use, ACM Computing Surveys, Dec 1999

• The New Media Reader, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort Editors, MIT Press, 2003 [ Computer Lib / Dream Machines chapter ]

• Dan Farber, Mashup Camp Day 2: The Mashups, ZDNet Blogs | Between the Lines, Feb 27, 2006

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

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Contact

Greg LloydPresident and Co-Foundergrl@tractionsoftware.com(401)-528-1145

Traction Software, Inc.245 Waterman StreetSuite 309Providence, RI 02906

www.TractionSoftware.com