The Here Web, The Weird Web

Sitting on the floor at the packed-to-the-gills AlwaysOn conference next to Doc, who is also blogging away. Bill Joy is up on stage, being interviewed by Steve Jurvetson.

Joy is talking through his six "modalities" of the web. These include:

• The "near" web...your desktop computer.
• The "far" Web...simple interaction through a remote control device, e.g. on interactive TV
• The "here" Web...mobile Internet devices
• The "weird" Web...voice and presence activated devices, such as door that opens on your command
• The eCommerce Web
• The "pervasive computing" Web

Although Joy's been talking about these items, broadly, for a while, the distinctions still seem to hold. In the near term, mobile devices such as the Treo are going to be the most ubiquitous applications of the web...the "here" web is it, according to Joy.