Thoughts @

mix - beyond browsing

The MIX06 conference held in Vegas this week was quite an event. Microsoft makes its debut into the design and web authoring world with this first-time event that started with Bill discussing next generation browsing via I.E. 7.0, improved RSS capabilities and new Atlas framework (Microsoft’s version of AJAX they are calling “Live Software” rather than the overused term “2.0”). A colleague commented after the event:

“The user experience tides are turning… The only thing I can compare my feelings during / after the Mix event to, would be the first time I saw Shockwave debuted at WebInnovation back in 1995! This is a serious disruptive point in our lives – all very very exciting…”

Like a golden ticket in a magical chocolate bar, Robert Scoble and Lynda.com invited many web folks (Dave Shea, Eric Meyer, Tantek Celik and Molly Holzschlag amongst others along with myself) to “MIX it up” and determine if Microsoft is worthy to take a stand in the web design and authoring world. Microsoft knows how to throw a first-class event, however is just beginning to understand their designer-based audience. Although more developer-focused than the balance many designers would have preferred, the event has a lot of potential, as do their new graphic, animation and web authoring products in a line called “Expression.”

In an stage interview with Tim O’Reilly, relevant mobile and user experience topics surfaced. Bill Gates and Tim O’Reilly had a candid conversation on stage about many topics, most notable was Tim talking about “cross-device support” and “using the word experience” and the competition faced by Macromedia and Adobe. This started a discussion about extensible mobile content that is centered on the user’s needs and not the device.

Bill’s response:

“You’re absolutely right, though, that everything we do now we can’t be device centric… we have to be user centric … If I say I love aertain sport on any device, then automatically it ought to configure that for me. If I buy a new phone, I shouldn’t have to go through a long process if I’ve already had a phone; even if I borrow my friend’s phone, once I authenticate, boom, right, the things I care about ought to show up there automatically. And so that’s a service that we’re working on, I’m sure others will do the same.”

Talking about ‘rich’ mobile experiences, he continues:

Well, I think as people like ourselves and Google and Yahoo! are creating very rich mobile phone experiences, both for consumers and in our case also very much for businesspeople as well, the phone companies, because they compete with each other, are going to want to let those experiences show through. And so, yes, there’s a lot of discussion about what kind of branding they should have and what kind of branding we should have, but if you have breakthroughs, as you have speech recognition or image recognition that can take a photo of a receipt and it automatically understands that, then, hey, people are going to get that software evolution on the device.

Bill also talked endorsed Microformats, which ended up being one of the best (unofficial) sessions at the conference. In the keynote, Bill stated, “We need microformats and to get people to agree on them. It is going to bootstrap exchanging data on the Web … we need them for things like contact cards, events, directions.” The unofficial discussion on microformats and structured blogging was then continued the next day in the Food Court of the Venetian Hotel by Marc Canter, Tantek Celik and Eric Meyer and had a highlight moment where the hotel police shut down ‘illegal’ gathering as if it were the 60’s. Expecially relevant is the potential for mobile authoring and content distribution as a more focused and contained version of RSS. Luc Van Braekel posted a thorough overview along with some pictures. This is an exciting grass roots movement that will only continue to take shape in the years to come.

You can view the “72-hour conversation” in recap format via the Virtual Mix

Posted on March 24th, 2006 in Thoughts
Tagged as , , , ,
Written by Kelly Goto

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