Top 25 Technology Drivers

"We have to completely change the way we look at a directory," he says. Although directories are the domain of administrators today, he sees that responsibility shifting to end users in the future. In fact, he believes the metadirectory will prove to be the grid on which the Internet will be organized. How will that scale? In a distributed manner, of course. Cameron's product, which went into beta-testing this summer, lets users go beyond sharing address-type information to include files and other information. That directory--including abstracts that describe files--can be kept on a server and shared across an intranet or the Internet. Search-engine providers already are contemplating how they can use these metadirectories to access static databases that lie beyond their search capabilities today. Cameron also believes that Internet service providers will come to rely on metadirectories for their customers. Of course, security standardization remains a key hurdle for widespread deployment of metad irectories across the Internet.

Cameron says he believes, however, that cyberspace will be settled by the world in the same way the old West was colonized. He sees products like his own creating real estate for everyone, even the desktop user. "I can visit your home and you can visit mine, instead of sending e-mail, which reminds me of being in prison," he says. Although the population will be sparse, people will concentrate on the weirdos, as they do today, he says, but as it becomes massively populated those problems will go away. Fences will be built and sheriffs will arise as they become necessary.

Contribution Last 12 Months: Developed metadirectory, beta began in mid-July
Next 12 Months: Fostering the metadirectory
Millennium Forecast : The total colonization of cyberspace with property for everyone and an organizational grid for this new land called the metadirectory
Millennium Disturbance: None. Cyberspace will be settled like the old West, with the gradual evolution of rules and fences.
Car: 1992 Lincoln Continental (with dual airbags for drivers preoccupied with technology)