robjam.es

With all the focus on cloud computing, why does cloud computing have to be on remote servers on some remote farm somewhere? Why can’t I just share out the data and power on my computer into a virtual farm, and so can you, and WE then become THE network?

I believe that Opera’s new browser and the Unite strategy is going down this path, and it excites me. It is taking away the power from the servers that are running websites, and putting it into my hands as a user and my desktop/laptop. I no longer have to worry about remote files, uploading, deploying worpress etc. Because now, (theoretically), this can all happen behind the scenes.

If Unite is what it promises to be, users will start to seamlessly deploy new services and applications. Applications could be envisaged that are mashups of web APIs, and then deployed on a local machine. There may be an opportunity for (again seamlessly) proxying these applications onto actual servers when the user’s computers are turned off, and synchronised when back on.

Then lets take that to the next level, where users can suddenly expose their own APIs! So here is a scenario; I create a mashup between twitter and my bank account (remember, this is all on my machine). So I can find an opportunity to monetise twitter and deposit money into my account (hypothetically, I would have no idea how this may really work), and then I expose this as a service, so others can use my API to create their own applications where I can get monetised benefits. The transactions could be ‘long lived’ and cached, so that once my computer comes back on, the transactions are processed. The sky is the limit!!

We aren’t seeing all this functionality as yet, but i am sure if this platform takes off for the Opera guys, this is where it may evolve.

What do you think – am I nuts?