An example of this type of central presentation server was demonstrated by Mark Jarvis, Chief Marketing Officer for Oracle Corporation. He prominently featured it in his keynote speech for Streaming Media West in Los Angeles. Although display technology in this case was poster-sized kiosks which Jarvis said replaced $40k of spending on posters each and every year for giant company across their enterprise. The benefit, he said was in having central servers streaming appropriate content worldwide. On returning from airport, I drove by an Oracle Corporation building aside freeway in Silicon Valley with a billboard sized version on display.

Clearly this type of technology requires large up-front investment and development costs, but it will become more affordable and accessible to public in approachable and realistic form on a human scale. The question is not so much how, but when? Adding functionality and choice to those public web terminals to make them interactive is remaining hurdle.

There are few cases where public web access can be provided free without significant filtering of content or absolute control of web destinations on publicly accessible kiosks. One can imagine good reasons for limiting access and limiting user time on kiosk computers, but I'm still convinced that it's first way that those without web access will gain a view of this world that has been entirely denied to them before now. The first use of public web kiosk computers that does become poppular enough to succeed will be dramatic for any organization, including government in public places. I don't know when, but I predict that it will arrive in some dramatic form, somewhere within next five years.

This sweeping change is coming in banking and commerce, in government, philanthropy, academia and even many personal interactions. I see a place for helping world to understand how this change affects broad majority of public, small business and vast middle ground -- rest of us. The industry talks about how BIG business, BIG finance and BIG government is moving toward total web adoption, but this affects rest of world too. Because business, government and finance is "moving online" it means that instant access to every aspect of our will be available to everyone via web.

Are there any folks out there who just have a middle level interest, run a small business online and don't sound like they are spelling everything when discussing business applications? CRM, ROI, ERP, J2EE , XML and even SOAP are on tongues of corporate suits. Are rest of us lost and wandering aimlessly through InternetWorld, sponsored by AOL and wondering what those letters are for?

Is internet made up of either web services of interest only to corporate CTO's OR pointless chatter from little prepubescent girls to their best friend via AOL Instant Messenger?

The mainstream is missing here. That is clearly part of odd atmosphere at web conferences as vendors hawk their wares from fancy show booths . . . and to whom? To enterprise, stupid! (Someone should tell AOL that there were no prepubescent girls attending this show.)

Soon even those using AOL will be able to accomplish all this stuff without their browser telling them, "You've got mail!" Maybe they'll want a colorful graphic to click on, but AOL users may not have to be told, "Here's your latest bank statement!" or "You've got to pay your insurance premium!" or "It's time for Spot to get his rabies shots!"

AOL users understand that world is available online, even if that knowledge comes through their sign-on screen and clicking on little blue "Yes" button rather than simply visiting those web sites themselves to take care of business or look up things directly. I think it may be immediacy that works best for AOL, that you know you have an email because AOL 7.0 tells you that you do. The immediacy of AOL instant messenger (dubbed AIM) is what makes that service so compelling for their users.

To AOL users that may take offense at my comments, I must first ask them if they know that most of rest of world uses a local cable company or independent service provider to access web through something called a browser (software) and not through "New! AOL version 7.0" junkmail CD they receive weekly in their mailbox.

Oh, and they'll never make a movie around XML or EDI, even if they could get Meg Ryan to star in it. Maybe if they could make movie seats CRM compliant. Naaahhh. "You've got user analytics data!" Wouldn't work.