I consider open source to be part of a broader movement that has a number of key characteristics.  At one level it has to do with the trend toward a plug & play infrastructure. It’s about platform thinking, about modular design; an approach that allows for rapid prototyping. But it’s also about user-generated content. In a sense we’re all becoming producers. It’s about leveraging what people have already created; about building on the work of others. It’s about relying on the power of the network. And therefore it’s also a trend away from bottoms-up software development; the idea that we have to build a cathedral all on our own, each time again, from scratch.  

 

Take the iPhone for example. The iPhone App Store is the key driver of the iPhone’s success, not the device itself.  It all happened quite coincidentally for Apple. Developers looked under the hood of the iPhone and discovered Unix; so they started developing applications. Apple had no choice but to open it up. But by doing so they unleashed a wave of innovation. The iPhone is not an open source product but its success can be ascribed to the fact that the core code is based on Unix.  To compete on the basis of innovation, you have to give people the ability to develop on your platform.  You have to create the right environment, and it starts by giving developers rich tools and APIs.  Clearly this movement is unstoppable.  

You can look at it in even broader terms too. Take the success of Silicon Valley’s ecosystem. I think an important explanation for this success is the way people here find value in having common ways of looking at things.  For example, start-ups all try to organise themselves in similar ways here.  That makes it all much easier to manage.  People are familiar with the structures and find their feet quicker when they join a company.  In a way the approach to doing business here is a ‘platform’ of sorts. 

The key thing we’ve learned is that bridging the digital divide is not foremost about offering cheaper computers or Internet connections.  If you look at the communities we worked with you won’t see a lack of networked devices. People have cell phones and game consoles.  There are many relatively cheap computing devices available today.  

 

If you want to address the digital divide then you need to help people extract the full benefits of technology.  And that comes down to educating people, especially parents.  It’s about helping parents in the way they teach their children to use technology. How do I make sure that my kids do the right things online, that they learn, and that they keep safe?  

There’s also a trend toward further decentralisation. Much in the way that Google was first a destination at google.com but has now become distributed—in the sense that you see its search tool and advertising pretty much everywhere online—you’re now going to see Facebook practically everywhere, via Facebook Connect. Social will be everywhere, in media obviously, but also in gaming and in productivity. Take gaming as an example. Gaming is moving way beyond the hard-core gaming community; it has become a lot more social and appeals to a much broader part of society. Social is also at the core of productivity. Ten years ago Microsoft Word was the most powerful application. But today it is all about collaborating around that document in the right way. The document application has become a commodity; what matters is the "social operating system".  And that’s what Facebook is building.  They own the core data, the social graph, and are giving users the tools to manage their social network and privacy. That task is clearly becoming more important, if I just look at the time I invest in managing my Facebook privacy settings and organising my connections in different segments. That way if I connect to say the Washington Post via Facebook Connect I have things under control. But it remains a challenge.  In fact, looking ahead I think that privacy and safety concerns will be the challenges of the decade.  Especially with regard to children—how do we ensure their safety and privacy?