Return of the Portal

All things old are new again.  I'm convinced the mobile apps movement is progressing at  breakneck speeds.    We aren't more than a year or two away from the "web" as we know it being regulated to an afterthought or become the second thing that gets developed for, it will be mobile first as Fred wilson says .

I believe this will evolve into content creators and media companies returning to the old idea of the web as the walled garden approach.   Web 2.0 was all about API's and mash-ups the app model will make entrepreneurs return to the idea of the early 2000's web of getting someone to your site and keeping them there.  This time it will be to try to get you to install the app and never close it by providing a large breadth of content all with ads surrounding it.

Think of this as being the equivalent of today's newspaper and magazine only with metrics of who is interacting with the ad. Again this is the same as the click through idea of the old display ads.  Now I'm sure (or not) that markers of learned a little from the old days and will try and provide relevant ads based on location, and other things fed into the app through facebook and the like.   Overall I think this is a step backward but we all have "app fever" and brands, startups and old media companies know it and will capitalize on it.