The Web Is Dead…But The Internet Isn’t. Now Pay Up.

Not so long ago, it seemed that all software and services would be free – paid for by advertisers eager to get their wares in front of the eyeballs of web-ravenous consumers.  Google, for example, has ridden this wave in more ways than one.

But today, the implications of the shift to new computing form factors (smartphones, ebook readers, and “tablets” like the iPad), and new, highly integrated device/software/content platforms is becoming clear.

It’s killing the web. But it may just bring balance back to the internet, world of business models, and company financial statements.

Yesterday’s Wired Magazine article, The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet, sums it up well. “You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.”

Rather than a browser-centric, open experience, more semi-closed and device specific experiences are defining our internet experience these days – and the likely explosion of embedded systems and sensor computing will only strengthen this trend.

It may not be an overstatement that Steve Jobs and Apple has done far more for this revolution than any other company. By providing an insanely compelling…uh, mp3 player…they not only won the fruits of premium pricing, but they also gained an installed base primed for backward integration into content. They became a music retailer – in spite of complaints about DRM, etc. – and made it profitable to sell music again after the Napster era.

iTunes video services repeated this success in the area of movies – Netflix had already gutted countless strip mall video stores across the country. Combined with Netflix’s streaming service and sites like Hulu (paid services coming out soon), a profitable model for “video rentals” returned.

And now Apple is making the three-peat happen in area of publishing with its iPad – eBooks are actually flying off the shelves in a way they haven’t in spite of years of availability online.  For software providers like Microsoft and Google who are more open in terms of the devices and parties who implement their software, there’s a cautionary note in this – being an “app” producer may or may not be the really lucrative part of the equation, and control of the right parts of the equation might just be indispensable to success.

The truth is, this model has been silently alive for a number of years in hardcore gaming. Software is developed for a specific device platform, and internet and client-side features are blended into a user-centric experience.  Or, as Wired puts it, it is clear we’re headed for “a post-HTML environment.”

Maybe it’s already here?