Henrik Werdelin

Having been involved in the venture world for a few years now, I have noticed that boring startups can suddenly become wild success stories, not through any fault of their own, but because there is a major external change in the marketplace. Sometimes, a company that didn’t seem likely to be a homerun becomes one overnight because a new technology or product is being launched by a major player. A good example is Admob which was really a small player until the iPhone came out – and everyone needed a way to monetize their apps. A similar thing could occur with the launch of the iPad. Here are a few quick ideas on what changes the iPad might lead to:

• HTML5. Since there is no flash on the device I think many will use HTML5 to make app-like sites and use the HTML5-based video streaming format to get video on it. Currently HTML5 is supported on Safari (both computer and iPhone) and Firefox. The ‘non IE support’ of HTML5 has slowed the usage of that format, but what you can do is quite impressive. So expect to see much more advanced sites built with HTML5 – aimed at the tablet.

• Touch. I think a major trend will be ‘non keyboard ways of interacting with the net’. We have already seen eyescanners in airports, Wii-controllers and early voice to text (actually working: e.g. it works really well on the Google phone). When people try navigating the web with their fingers, I think it will be a ‘magical’ moment for them. This will lead to the user demand for (and acceptance of) more touch devices. From laptops over mobiles to kiosks. I think you will even start to see websites who will think of designing for hand navigation.

• User centric design product development. This is maybe not a crystal behavior change – but still a trend I think is very important (and will write about this later). If you watch the Apple video about the iPad you will notice how often they use touchy-feely words “it just feels right”, “the device changes to your needs” and so on. I think this is leading to a new direction in product development, where user centric design, user flow and visual feel will be considered much more important that it has been before (where design was a distant third consideration after tech and the business model).

• E-books.  I guess I think that the Kindle will still be my preferred choice for e-reading for now. There are really three reasons: 1. I am already set up with Amazon and many of the books I read are industry-specific so won’t be available on the iPad.  2. Battery time is really important for me, so the Kindle’s two weeks of battery is key. I really like that I don’t have to remember to charge the Kindle and don’t have to bring a power supply for it (think it might be a nicer way to read long texts too). 3. Kind of an odd one, but the reason I use the Kindle is because it’s not a computer. When I am on my laptop there are so many things that want to grab my attention that I very seldom get to read stuff. The Kindle allows me to focus on reading – without getting distracted by instant messengers, emails, links I want to check and so on. So while it might not be a Kindle Killer,  I think that the launch of the iPad will focus more attention on e-books and the digital distribution of books and mags in general. Thus, it will likely change the industry by educating the publishers, pushing the features and usability of other e-book readers and making books and mags a must-have-feature for other tablets..

Any other areas it might affect?