Real Time Collaboration and Web 2.0 tools, tips, and reviews

Om Malik and Jackson West wrote about coffee houses in San Francisco becoming the new business incubators for technology start-ups, thanks in large part to prolific Wi-Fi hotspots and web-based applications that allow developers to work online, download the tools they need to their laptop, program to their hearts content, and then collaborate in a virtual conference room.

While Web 2.0 is the over-used buzz word for these applications, I'd like to point out that the idea of the Internet being an operating platform goes way back to 1995, in a memo that Ben Slivka wrote to Bill Gates, prophetically entitled "The Web is the Next Platform".

Now this is not to take anything away from O'Reilly Media, whose Web 2.0 Conferences bear the slogan "The Web as Platform", but I think we should all raise a glass to Ben for being the first one to announce it. Cheers, Ben!