Not sure why you got modded down. That's definitely a valid question. If we do put our lives on the internet, all the major world governments will certainly build and maintain profiles on all of us. They'd be stupid not to given how relatively simple it is. And the spy agencies have far better point of view. They can even do the difficult IP address -> SSN mapping.
His ideas for trying to map real world everyday problems directly on the web strikes me as naive -- the approach taking by lots of dot bombs. He'd probably be excited about a site that allows you to split the tab at restaurants.
I think the exciting web stuff has mostly been products that create totally new user behavior and lack direct analogues in the physical world.
I would disagree with your sentiment. I think the sense of wonder and endless opportunities put forth by the author perfectly describes a nontechnical user of new web services. While you may say it is naive, I would say it is genuine and pure.
Consider the "Epidemic Watcher" idea. This could be easily implemented with the Google Maps API, tied to a medical news aggregator and partnered with WebMD. Now it may sound silly to watch a particularly nasty strain of the common cold march its way across the Midwest, but the idea becomes vastly more interesting when you start to plot SARS, Avian Flu, West Nile, etc.
Combine News articles and a graphical geological representation of an infections march and I think you might actually have a winner on your hands.
Although, the vast majority of the sites visitors may be hypochondriacs at least you have a good idea who to target your advertising to.
The "Epidemic Watcher" could be a "winner" in what sense? Even if it was popular it would only play a minor (mostly unimportant) role in most of our lives. This kind of idea is like paying your parking tickets online. It'd be nice, but it wouldn't be life-altering.
Things like YouTube/Flickr/MySpace influence lives and cultures in significant ways. Those are the kinds of things that make the internet so exciting to me.
It would be a "winner" to me, not only because it played a "minor even completely useless" part to your life but because it would be interesting to even a small sliver of people online. Look at the long-tail on a site like this. You could host it easily without major snags for three hundred bucks a month. If you only play a 0.5% margin for 10 years this application could very well pay off. It's niche I understand, it doesn't have the mass appeal of the "major" players right now. But consider the vast amounts of people that are getting online each year. That niche sites user base grows proportionately. And the real kicker is that a niche site has a very narrow set of users. Making them easier to profile and easier to sell adverts too. Think of the deal you could make with TheraFlu or Tamiflu. Thats why its a winner.
If everyone waits to make the next big thing then most of us will be waiting the rest of our lives.
At least it would be very interesting to watch. Recently researchers used "Where's George", a page that tracks dollar bills, to gain new insights into epidemics. Maybe it would be like with Mathematics: often it is only centuries later that a useful application for a mathematical theory is found (for example number theory - cryptography).
IIRC, this idea was proposed by Fred Wilson on his blog a few months before this site launched. Not sure if the founders got the idea there or independently. Either way, Pogue's idea here isn't that original.
