Hiring the Internet

One interactive media company is offering web users a look into the future, or rather, one possible future.

Imagine a galaxy-like desktop with different running programs grouped together like nebula. Or imagine Internet browsers that run semantic analysis on everything you’re viewing and reading.

Mozilla is hosting a Labs Concept Series, inviting participants to dream up and create visions for “Firefox, the Mozilla Project, or the Web as a whole.” Adaptive Path offers a video series to predict what the online experience will be like in 10 years.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/1450211]

If you want to watch the video in HD, go to the site and watch the first part of the Aurora Concept Video Series (it runs just a little over seven minutes).

Much of the interaction mimics more of the real world’s movements with grabbing, lifting, and dragging objects on the screen. And the “user stacks” at the sides integrates the browser even more onto the desktop–in fact, the two are hardly distinguishable in this model.

The main action in this scene revolves around the “dispute” between Jill and Alan. Alan’s ability to show Jill his data with a “presentation object” is particularly interesting, and would have great potential for business interactions.

The hidden radial menu, on the other hand, seems a little unwieldy and feature-heavy. (But some commentators on the site and others seemed to like it.) Also, the desktop is a bit of an eyesore when the user stacks are up, and it can seem unnavigable with so many clusters of icons floating around in oddly shaped globs (which the video’s narrator refers to as “spatial tools”).

Still, the video series is more about possibilities than solutions at the moment. Adaptive Path’s vision of the future seems intriguing and, in some ways, realistic. How do you think online marketing can be integrated into innovations such as these? Stay tuned to this site for future video launches. Here, the future is looking pretty good.

Update 8/8/08: Here are links to the rest of the video series.

Aurora, Part 2 – Going Mobile on a Handheld Touchscreen Device

Aurora, Part 3 – Integrating the Physical World Into the Web

Aurora, Part 4 – Using Gestural Interfaces and Accessing Others’ Data to Determine Gift Shopping Selections (Scary!)

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