Is The Web Dead?

Of course the browser was never intended to be a general purpose applications platform... it was intended to allow hypertext browsing in a standard way. Apps were shoehorned into this environment, simple submit/response forms at first, then later richer UIs as browsers had more and more support bolted on... but web apps have never been and still are not capable of delivering the user experience of a native (fat) client app.

As Apple has finally invented an internet "appliance" that people like to use, it would not surprise me to see an increasing trend of consumer buying away from a general purpose PCs (which few folks really need and most tolerate only because there is no better alternative) and towards these much friendlier, easier to use, more specialized platforms.

The web might be becoming slightly less of a Single and Obvious Answer as a platform for internet technology investors and entrepreneurs - how much so, well, they'll figure it out.

Rumours of the web's death are greatly exaggerated, though. It's the largest generally accessible, indexed, hyperlinked, searchable repository of information out there by a crushing margin. Oh and you can add essentially whatever you want to it for essentially nothing. It's effectively immortal, or at the very least, undead. If you ever find yourself regularly spending an hour online without doing a search, clicking, saving or sharing a link then the web might be on its way out. We should all live so long.

The Wired article (especially the charts!) is essentially equating bandwidth with usage: according to it, video is > 50x more "alive" than email. I typically spend much more time per day on email than video, but my guess is the episode of Mad Men that iTunes downloaded for me yesterday counts more than my last month of email...

I think we will see a migration towards 3D environments as the primary platform. I think 3D TVs will pave the way for computing devices (it may already have and I'm behind the curve).

It'll start with games but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a 3D enabled "browser" within a couple of years. In the beginning it might be driven just by being 'cool'. But then I'm sure we'll see some real UI enhancements based on it (just like we saw with the recent AJAX/'JavaScript is Okay' trend).

So if "web is dead" refers to 2D HTML, I think it may be in it's sunset years. If it means external references from one piece of data to another, no way. That's here to stay, just in other forms.

I think the web is far from dead, but designing for web browsers first is becoming a deadly strategy. Most interesting bit from the article: "In a board meeting yesterday, the founder said, 'everything we do is cloud-based, with an API, and mobile friendly'". That's very insightful: the time has come to design your apps for mobile devices first.

The quick answer: no, it's not dead.