Notes

The Web is Dead?

Yesterday, Wired caused much ruckus on the intertubes with their article entitled The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet, where the main argument goes as follows:

Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting.

Arguing that companies seeking return on their investments are abandoning the web for more profitable pastures, the article has some interesting points and is well worth reading. Although the sentiment and conclusions can, and have been argued, the idea that the (free) web’s dominance is challenged is worth reflecting on.

Later in the day, BoingBoing rebutted with a modified graph, showing the “decline” of the web with the growth of traffic taken into account. By counting the explosive growth of traffic on the internet, the web no longer seems in decline, but rather joined by an even more explosive growth in high-bandwidth services like file-sharing and video.

Wired has clearly picked a sensationalist headline for their cover feature, but in the same issue, Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle debates whether The Web Is Dead, and Evan Hansen discusses How the Web Wins.

In all, an interesting debate — when you go beyond the stirring headline.

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The Periodical

The most recent entries in the Periodical and Reviews sections:

• AIGA have long fought the good fight against crowdsourcing, clearly articulating the very real issues that plague the 'winner takes all' approach to sourcing design by subcontracting it to the masses…
• In 2009, Andy Baio - a writer and entrepreneur who helped build Kickstarter - ate his own dog food and launched a Kickstarter project called 'Kind of Bloop'. The idea was elegant, and one we immediately fell in love with…
• As the old saying goes, "You only get one chance to make a first impression." Launched amid much fanfare late last week, Color is, apparently, "a miraculous application," and one of the first of many, new life-changing applications for the 'Post-PC World' in which we now live. It's also guilty of a not insubstantial degree of hyperbole…

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Learn how to build hand-crafted web pages using well-structured XHTML and lean and efficient CSS. By embracing a web standards approach, HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions enables you to create web sites that not only look great in all modern browsers, but are also accessible to a wide variety of audiences across a range of platforms - from those browsing on everyday computers, to those accessing the web on the latest, emerging mobile devices.

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The Authors

In addition to their role as lecturers in interactive design at the University of Ulster at Belfast, where they have been active in promoting a web standards-based curriculum, Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson are practicing designers and digital artists. Their work has featured in a variety of design books and magazines alongside numerous internationally respected designers and they are regular speakers at design conferences and workshops worldwide.

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