Browser-based wristwatches

Digital watches have never been the most fashionable accessory. But I think that will soon change, as display technology has developed in leaps and bounds.

Imagine if your watch contained a screen like the new iPhone, showing an arty clockface that could be touched to reveal more (e.g. date/time, news headlines, weather, your latest calendar appointments).

You could set this all up by registering at a website on your PC and customizing the look and feel - for example, setting the background to be a family photo.

The technology is already all there - touch screen, 3G data, browser displaying HTML / SVG. Finally, the digital watch can overcome its geekiness.

Does Apple get the internet?

It might seem a silly question, but does Apple really understand the internet?

After all, they're best known for producing hardware and personal operating systems (iPhone, iMac, iPod, Mac OS) and media applications (QuickTime and iTunes). These are all client-side; apple.com is just an old-fashioned download site, and mac.com is their only attempt at a modern web application, languishing as the 800th most popular site.

Apple has had no success in converting iTunes into a community site, where people could share recommendations, music gossip and events, or post their own music. And with broadband now prevalant, why not store your music at iTunes.com, rather than on your c: drive - that way, you could access it from any computer, or directly from your iPhone.

Finally, if Apple is not careful, sites like Photobucket, Picasa and the forthcoming photoshop.com will steal its tradition in graphics.

Proving they understand the web

Even Apple isn't immune to Silicon Valley start-ups, especially those competing with their key music and graphics applications.

Apple have shown enormous flexibility in the last few years, transitioning to Intel processors and moving to touch screens from their famous clickwheel. They'll have to demonstrate it again by moving to web applications.

I've written some success measures for Apple, to demonstrate how far they've got to go in making use of the web:

• Replace iTunes with iTunes.com, a browser-based social application
• Enable direct iPhone access to iTunes.com
• Create the best photo editing site

Are Apple ready to create the next great online applications for graphics and music? If not, they'll be limited to selling internet devices.

Projects are social networks

Project management is natural for the web. That's because it's all about continually creating, maintaining and communicating project information - i.e. "collaboration" - so that the project remains on track. No one's found a better collaboration system than the web.

Project management systems have been web-based for several years now - I've had experience with Planview and several internally developed applications. But they suffer commmon flaws - data is hard to find, hard to update, and too complicated (especially around time management, approvals and project workflow).

What's missing is Web 2.0 - i.e. the use of simple, social web technologies. This will bring less focus on formal workflow, and more focus on straightforward collaboration. What could be easier than a Wiki-based project homepage, or a social network containing the project team?

Below are some ideas for improvement that I haven't seen in any existing project management system.

Requirement	Web Technology
communicate project information	Wiki
maintain project plan	Wiki (using SVG / VML for Gantt view, hyperlinks for dependencies)
track status changes	Wiki versioning
staff notifications	RSS feeds
time management	Microformat integration with calendar
system integration (e.g. with a financial or CAD tool)	RSS mashups or open web APIs

One unexplored opportunity is microformats. A project management system that expressed project plans using microformats would express the who, when and where in a machine-readable format, so all sorts of possibilities open up - linking to mapping software, people's calendars, or a corporate directory, for example.

Another relatively unexplored opportunity for project management software is RSS (or Atom). Staff would subscribe to receive notifications when key pieces of information change (for example, project risks or milestone changes).

And the work breakdown structure (a.k.a. plan) is just a widget that uses microformats to integrate with people's calendars and maps.

Projects are social networks

What I like about these ideas is that they are simple ways to directly support project managers using today's technology.

Enterprise Project Management systems started out as monolithic client-server applications. What they're turning into is social networks, because that's what a project team is!