The web still introduces new perspectives, from social networking sites to online versions of desktop applications. The centralization of online services is certainly a wonderful opportunity for service providers to collect all kinds of data. It also comes along with new levels of dependency for the users, together with technology limitations inherited from web technologies and standards – not talking about the ethical questions. Google, Facebook, blogs, Twitter: all follow the same idea of centralizing UGC (User Generated Content).

Ideally all connected devices could act independently as servers for their local resources (any data or hardware), sharing directly under the control of each user, including from mobile devices. Business applications can also benefit from this new, decentralized approach.

I will show that this model not only is conceptually elegant, but is also practical and has many technical advantages over the centralized implementations. It can also open doors for all kinds of new applications.

Meanwhile we can observe the convergence between traditional software and network applications, thanks to richer web interfaces. The idea of embedded, cross platform web server is therefore almost natural.

To make it available across the net, this architecture must be interfaced to some kind gateway or portal.

With the introduction of light and powerful frameworks for web development (Django, RoR…), such product could be completely platform independent and spread in the open source community.

But before reaching a large acceptance and eventually user base, an architecture and a framework have to be developed. If a solution is flexible enough then all kinds of new applications could be experimented and implemented.

Such a design needs support. The open source community has shown that it may be the best place for experimenting and implementing innovative ideas.

I will also show that this concept can interest many kinds of businesses which must find new ways to differentiate their offer. Support from industries is therefore also expected, even beyond the UGC potential actors. For example: the network providers (make best use of the available bandwidth), the mobility based professions (development of applications for workers in the field), media providers, etc.

The pdf version of the presentation is here.