What’s On O’Reilly’s Mind These Days

This month’s Wired brought a trove of interesting profiles, including a piece by Steven Levy about Tim O’Reilly, who became famous in computer circles by founding a company that publishes manuals and books about software. O’Reilly, who lives in Sebastopol, CA, is big on participation, and spots trends that lie ahead. Currently on his radar:

*VoIP, making telephone calls over the ‘Net. He sees this as ‘completely undermining telephone companies and cell phone carriers.

*DIY O’Reilly publishes a quarterly magazine called “Make,” where readers get ideas on stuff they can make, or hack, and he’s planning a ‘Maker Faire,’ a Woodstock for Gyro Gearloose types’ where people who love to tinker and create can come together.

*The Participation Era O’Reilly is very big on collective efforts, and how the audience’s strengths can be put to use. ‘He always asks start-up businesses, ‘what are you doing to harness the intelligence of your users?

*Geography-based mash-ups Using GPS to blend different elements of websites similar to how musicians take old songs and recreate them as new. Example: housingmaps.com uses info from craigslist to display Google maps of apartments for rent.