People wonder what the next ginormous step in tech is going to be. My money is on inventory search of every store. What needs to happen for this to become reality? RFID. Interoperability between inventory systems.

Lots of stuff you’re never going to buy online (groceries; the Target run). But if you’re searching for some obscure item, you should be able to go on Google and locate the stores closest to you that have that item, in real time. (Think how much time this would save in trying to hopscotch from store to store to find that perfect gift.)

When you think of it, most of Web 2.0 is a presentation layer above the existing, a way to rate/save/share/remix existing products. ECommerce is an option over and above bricks and mortar. What is the Web doing to change things at the product layer?