For the most part, we all know how to find what we’re looking for. We can either type in a URL, or go to a search engine and input our request. We can scroll through a list of pages, and if none seem an exact match to our request, we can open them one at a time, going back to the search engine list to find the next one to explore.

Phil Windley, founder and CTO of a company called Kynetx, believes the experience can be made easier and more useful. He’s already talking about the next era of Internet use, something he calls the “purpose-based Web.” And his way of getting there, interestingly enough, is via the client.

You read that right. Windley’s vision, in its simplest terms, involves making the desktop more than a mere renderer of what some HTML writer wanted it to be.

“People go to the Web to accomplish something,” Windley said, “and it’s often the case that you have to go to multiple websites to accomplish this. As soon as you talk about coordinating actions across multiple sites, it makes more sense to do it on the client.”

Kynetx has created a framework for developing client-side applications that enhance the browser experience. And one of the company’s VARs, Azigo, built a tool for the AAA motor club that lets its members see places that offer discounts when they perform Google searches for such places as restaurants, hotels and motels.

The AAA, he said, says the No. 1 determinant of whether people renew their memberships is if they’ve availed themselves of discounts. Most members don’t, he said, because it’s often too difficult to find all the places that offer them.

“By combining data with the [websites] you’re visiting, it eases the experience and makes it more useful,” Windley said. “You can imagine things that are more complex.”

Windley said another partner created an application that lets people searching for movies know if a particular movie can be run with a “ClearPlay” filter. ClearPlay is a technology that can filter objectionable material out of films so the whole family can watch together. Users can choose from a dozen settings categories to customize the filter. So, if a movie buff is on Netflix, for instance, and has the ClearPlay client application, his search through Netflix will tell him which movies have the ClearPlay capability.

Kynetx, which will be discussing this and more at its Impact Conference in Salt Lake City on Nov. 19, defines the “purpose-based Web” in six rules:

1.    Purpose is more important than Location.


2.    Freedom is more important than Control.


3.    Context is more important than Content.


4.    Relationships are more important than Transactions.


5.    Loyalty is more important than “Time on site.”


6.    Individuals are more important than Demographics.

The applications run via a single-purpose add-on for the browser, Windley explained, or via information cards that serve as more of a universal add-on.

Still another application with far-reaching implications is Google’s Sidewiki, which wasn’t built on the Kynetx framework but is a Google Toolbar update that lets people leave comments on websites. The owner of the website can’t control the comments or block them, so he or she must deal with the consequences of, say, a bad review, or some kind of vendetta.

“Now you’re talking about empowering people with the Web,” Windley said.

Imagine a congressman or senator voting against the wishes of his constituency, and a Sidewiki message board appears (on the legislator’s website!) to users urging them to vote him or her out of office in the next election. Imagine a customer who’s treated poorly at a car dealership’s service center, and posting details of his experience on the dealer’s site—urging people not to purchase a car there.

Applications such as these can take the Web in new, more interactive directions, and put power squarely into the hands of users. And that should make everyone with a Web presence think about how they interact with their communities.

David Rubinstein is editor-in-chief of SD Times.

Related Search Term(s): Kynetx

Share this link: http://www.sdtimes.com/link/33872