It's not your grandfather's Internet.
The World Wide Web is 20 years old and already experiencing a premature decline, according to Chris Anderson of Wired magazine. The magazine wailed the warning in two-inch-high black caps on its dayglow September cover: "The Web is Dead." What Anderson explains in his article is that the Web part of the Internet is losing its grip. "One of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semi-closed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display." In a word, traffic is shifting lanes from the Webpage neighborhoods to the on-ramps for apps that don't have the "www" prefix on their digital mailboxes.For many, there isn't a clear distinction between the Internet and the Web, so we'll start there.
The Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected computer networks. Literally millions of computers are connected on this network, and your computer can join the connection as long as it's using the correct languages or protocols. One of those languages, the HTTP protocol (hypertext transfer protocol), is used by an application on your computer (a browser, such as Explorer or Firefox) to connect to depositories of information called Web pages or sites. The browser submits addresses with "www" prefixes to access the information on something called the World Wide Web. Technically, the Web is an "information-sharing model built on top of the Internet"--more like an application running on the Internet.
But there are other languages, or protocols, and other means for transferring information over the planet-wrapping network, and these other services are bearing more of the traffic on the Internet as the Web carries less.
OVERPOWERING WAVE OF APPS
Instant messaging, news from RSS feeds, Skype, e-mail, free music broadcasts like Pandora, social networks like Facebook and Twitter--these are the force fields drawing traffic away from the Web's traditional websites. And the seismic shift away from PCs to mobile hardware, smartphones, and tablets will only reinforce the new polarities. Anderson claims the "post-Web future" is already here, and, instead of browsers, there's the "Apple and the iPhone/iPad juggernaut leading the way, with tens of millions of consumers already voting with their wallets for an app-led experience."
Consider the phenomenal sales of the iPhone, and now the iPad, and the number of apps, growing at 500+ a day, ceaselessly adding to a lurching quarter-million total so far, and Anderson's claim seems more believable. Perhaps the number that's the hardest to factor in is the download total. As of September 1, 2010, Wikipedia shows more than 6.5 billion total Apple App-store downloads.
But there's even more evidence of the shift when you look past the Apple to get a glimpse of the rest of the landscape. Serious sources report that a growing list of Android-driven devices, smartphones mostly, are currently outselling Apple devices. In a world served by the Internet, there are approximately two billion TV screens, one billion personal computer screens, and five billion cell phones. About 73% of the world's population has mobile phones, and, in the U.S., 286 million, or about 93% of the population, have them. Today 25% of those are smartphones, and the growth of the smart technology is spiking globally. Mobile connectivity to the Internet is like a rising sun with its consequent gravitational pull.
The end result? Wired's numbers assert that the application called the Web is responsible today for "less than a quarter of the traffic on the Internet ... and it's shrinking."
A few caveats seem appropriate here concerning the numbers supporting the "Web is Dead" thesis on Wired's front door. It seems true that the percentage of traffic for websites has decreased--but only as a percentage of an overall total that has itself greatly expanded. In other words, it's possible that the volume of traffic to websites has increased even though the Web's share of the total has decreased.
The tech blog BoingBoing offered a set of numbers to balance Wired's Web autopsy. "In fact," wrote Rob Beschizza, "between 1995 and 2006, the total amount of Web traffic went from about 10 terabytes a month to 1,000,000 terabytes (or 1 exabyte). According to Cisco, the same source Wired used for its projections, total Internet traffic rose then from about 1 exabyte to 7 exabytes between 2005 and 2010."
In Wired's graph profiling growth, video is at the top of the chart, hogging a wide swath of bandwidth. Bandwidth total is one way to measure popularity, but you shouldn't lose sight that one video stream might grab the same space that could deliver a number of text/graphic conventional websites. So do you consider the bandwidth or the number of items delivered in formulating generalities about success?
It's certainly true that there's a revolutionary shift over to mobile that's frightening PC makers and annoying netbook importers, but the path that might widen to the road most taken has only one high-profile traveler so far. With his truly remarkable tablet device, the iPad, under his arm, Steve Jobs is alone on that road. Expect that to change soon. At the recent IFA Consumer Electronics show in Berlin, manufacturer Elonex announced nine different Android tablets that resemble the iPad. The expected retail on these eTouch devices will range from about $125 for the one with the five-inch screen to $200 for the top-of-the-line tablet with a 10-inch screen (iPads have 9.7-inch viewing areas).
REDESIGN
It's unlikely that the traditional website format is going to disappear anytime soon. Because the design and arrangement of Web pages and archives are usually so much better suited to larger screens, the standard storefront/publication/ museum/utility websites will continue to prosper on the desktop/laptop. And the website that migrates to mobile devices without serious adjustments will continue to frustrate users trying to read the large-page content on the three-inch screen of their smart phone. There's always work before a website is emigrated out to pockets or tablets.
An interesting Web genre to watch is the online newspaper. A traditional paper like The New York Times has more inertia to overcome with a new design simply because people have seen the same basic front page going back to 1851. The new home page on the Web, like the paper newspaper, lets you scan the front page for stories and indexes of links, but there is clutter from some rather large ads. The design for the iPad tablet is cleaner but contains far less content. The NY Times Editor's Choice app, available free at the App Store, opens to a front page of Editor's Choice/News. An understated banner ad at the bottom of the page doesn't interfere with the dozen or so selected stories on the two pages of the "News." You scroll to the second page with a horizontal finger sweep. At the bottom of the page, there's a thin black band with seven icons for other two-page sets of Business, Technology, Opinion, Arts, Features, and Videos. It's a very clean presentation. And if you want the whole paper version, you can still use the Safari browser on your tablet to call up the Web version.
By Michael Castelluccio, Editor
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| Title Annotation: | TECH FORUM |
|---|---|
| Author: | Castelluccio, Michael |
| Publication: | Strategic Finance |
| Geographic Code: | 1USA |
| Date: | Oct 1, 2010 |
| Words: | 1201 |
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