Interesting Marc Andreessen speech notes

[Ed DeBolt Jr]

I had this article forwarded to me. Hope you find it interesting.

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This afternoon, Marc Andreessen, inventor of Mosaic and now  
co-founder of Netscape, gave a lecture to a grad class at Stanford.   
Attending the lecture was a literal who's who of human-computer  
interface design.

What follows is an embellished version of my shorthand scrawl:

- Netscape estimates 6 million people use their browser; no market  
percentage was claimed

- According to protocol analysis, the majority of IP packets being  
sent over the internet contain http, having surpassed email a few  
weeks ago
	- the majority of users access the internet via the web

- Lots of old metaphors are now being used to display information,  
those metaphors will break down very soon (malls, newsstands, etc.)

- Major Netscape customers are looking to the internet for  
salvation because they really don't know what or where their  
businesses are, anymore
        - communications and telcos
        - publishing
        - financial
        - computer/software
        - Global Fortune 2000 companies

- Providers like Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy, etc. are in big trouble  
if they don't adopt an infrastructure that uses the internet model
        - currently, their backbones can't handle the increased level 	
	of traffic

- Some of Netscape's first large customers were Penthouse, Playboy  
and Hustler

- Proxy servers are a key software technology
        - without them, large companies won't hook up
                - security
                - content control
                - traffic control

- Actual internet/web business application software is the growth  
market, not just browsers

- A change of the page metaphor is imminent
        - HTML 3 will be the launchpad
        - interactivity will be responsible for new metaphors
        - interactivity will be the ultimate user control for page layout
        - interactive browsers will let users redefine the layout  
of a site on the fly, at will
        - indexing, navigational aides and content organization  
will quickly supercede current layout and design issues

- VRML and Hot Java will support this change
        - "Doom!" like interfaces will be the next model for browsers
        - current VRML does not support views of other people using  
browsers
          on the same page, Java will change that
        - 3D scenes will be "commonplace" by the end of the year
        - Hot Java is actually about 6 years old
        - ultimately, user will have complete control over how  
content is viewed

- Have computers become "geek-free" or have we all become geeks?
        - he suspects the latter, especially in light of the  
average 	user trying to network Windows 3.1

- Privacy is still an issue, though not as big as before
        - current, publicly available encryption technology will  
require about 64 mips years of CPU time to crack a message

- Netscape is now accepting advertising on it's site, but is not  
leasing space on its server farm for other external content

- He forsees custom protocols being developed for interactive sessions

- user connects to site, browser downloads protocol for interactive  
session, after session is complete, browser forgets protocol

- HTML and PDF are complimentary technologies
        - soon there will be more browser improvements that will  
have little to do with HTML or page manipulation, but will  
facilitate data
retrieval

- Emphasized use of push-pull facilities as the basis for crude  
interactivity and background "multimedia" experience

- Lost in hyperspace is still a big problem and lots more research  
needs to be done to solve this issue

--
William Barr, Stanford Computer Forum   phone: 415-723-6632
ERL 448/450, Stanford, CA  94305-4055   fax:   415-725-7398
wbarr at leland.stanford.edu   finger wbarr at cs.stanford.edu for PGP
<URL:http://www-forum.stanford.edu/~wbarr/wbarr.html>
listowner: html-authors-guild at list.stanford.edu
       "My opinions are mine and only mine."