In a couple hours I will be participating in a panel ‘What the Web can’t do’ at WWW 2010 in Raleigh North Carolina (at 10:30 AM). Interesting topic.
The Web started as a document web — a web of linked pages or documents. Most things on the web still have the legacy of that — we have modified HTML developed different protocols and approaches related to HTTP, but our thinking has not come out of the ‘page’ oriented thinking. In these days when the Web is rapidly transforming from pages to pictures, video, tweets (micro-events), and connection with physical space — think Foursquare etc — we need to think as if the Web is a window to the world and this window is more like a perspective of a person, rather than a fixed window. Is the Web ready for this? Not in my opinion and will not be ready for several years if we start working with the new perspective now.