AoyW is Distributed Web 2.0

As handhelds get more powerful, and laptops lighter, and flash drives denser, something strange and wonderful will happen... the web will colonize them. Not as clients, but as servers! If centralized web services are cool, then distributed, mobile ones are a snowstorm; a shower of unique, lightweight systems, each tailored to its bearer.

Pocket web servers bring the advantages of the web information model into everyday computing: multi-format pages, interlinked to form webs; presented on multiple screens, in varying modes, to one or many users. But unlike cloud servers, you are never disconnected from pocket webs; noone can cut you off from your tools & data.

Software on the distributed web will be a service, in many cases. Pocket web servers will typically belong to two or more services (e.g. one public, and one private to your business) which provide software, backup, synchronization of shared data, and support. These services will also have centralized features, like semaphores for shared resources, and gateways to enterprise systems.

Pocket web apps can do tricks that cloud web apps can't, due to internet latency. They can handle all user input with one package of code, and do it fast; exactly what PCs do today to create responsive UIs. Pocket web apps can do tricks that PCs can't, due to PC architecture. They can deliver customized views of a page to a set of participating clients; exactly what web application servers do today.

The distributed web is the best of both worlds, and it's the natural site for some of the apps now being written for the cloud using AJAX. Office apps are much more alive in your pocket.