The Web Is Dead? I Beg Your Pardon?

I have to admit the irony of ready this on a webpage, and then reposting it on a webpage, makes me chuckle.

I think I get the distinction between viewing an Internet resource on an “app” rather than a “traditional” webpage. Except I am not quite convinced, as even on their graph a the peer-to-peer and video traffic is still being funnelled through websites.

But it does make one wonder. If the future of the Internet is NOT in web pages, but in “apps” that are viewed on multi-media devices, where then does that leave library sites and say blogs like this? Will the new trendy thing be a free “app” builder, or “app” host? How many libraries, and LMS suppliers are developing “apps”?  How long will we need to be developing both in conjunction [site and app]?

Interesting indeed.

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet By Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff [From Wired]

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. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures.

Sources: Cisco estimates based on CAIDA publications, Andrew Odlyzko

You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, and The New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.

You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone.

This is not a trivial distinction. Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend. Producers and consumers agree: The Web is not the culmination of the digital revolution.

A decade ago, the ascent of the Web browser as the center of the computing world appeared inevitable. It seemed just a matter of time before the Web replaced PC application software and reduced operating systems to a “poorly debugged set of device drivers,” as Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen famously said. First Java, then Flash, then Ajax, then HTML5 — increasingly interactive online code — promised to put all apps in the cloud and replace the desktop with the webtop. Open, free, and out of control.

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