Long post by Tim O’Reilly on the current state of the Internet as an Operating System. Many key developments that see this idea coming together and Tim connects the dots in a compelling way to complete the picture. The key piece for me is Social. The Internet OS still does not usefully recognize that we have multiple social graphs that depend upon application and context. Current solutions such as Facebook Connect currently assume a universal “friend’s list” which doesn’t address this subtlety.

Whoever cracks this code, providing frameworks that make it possible for applications to be functionally social without being socially promiscuous, will win. Platform providers are in a good position to solve this problem once, so that users don’t have to give credentials to a larger and larger pool of application providers, with little assurance that the data they provide won’t be misused.  (Emphasis mine).

This is a key problem that needs to be solved. Location-based services and mobile devices are pieces of the puzzle but more synapses are needed to make it work effortlessly.