Is the “Cloud” a Misnomer?

Reading this recent article on taking the interface/experience for controlling television out of the set-top box (http://gigaom.com/video/cloud-set-top-box/) makes me really think about why we are calling this new wave of Internet-based services “cloud-based.”

As a metaphor, it doesn’t really work as it would suggest that the entire planet is covered by a giant cloud. That would be depressing.

But we can’t simply call them web applications (as that implies through a browser) and using SaaS is j...