
The Evolution of the Web - ot
http://www.evolutionoftheweb.com/#/evolution/day
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Foomandoonian
This is a nice web technologies demo, and there is good information in here (
I especially like the browser screenshots), but the thing I find most striking
about this is how useless it is at visually illustrating the 'evolution' of
the web.

I wrote a blog post about this when it first appeared last September:
<http://halfblog.net/2011/09/01/the-evolution-of-the-web/>

Now it has become even flashier, and even more cluttered and confusing. The
swooping colourful lines mean absolutely nothing. I realise they arc through
the different browsers to (roughly) the point at which those browsers adopted
the technology, but the swoops themselves only serve to confuse the
information.

Very much a case of style over substance. This is a horrible infographic, and
I'm confused why it seems to be so popular.

~~~
essayist
I agree.

The swirling lines begin to tell an interesting story: from 1994-1997, and
then again from 2008-2012, lots of technologies enter the picture, so we get
some sense of when the bursts of innovation happen.

The clutter of the lines - and their tending to vertical rather than more
horizontally slanted - suggests that browser adoption of technologies is
quicker from 2008 on.

But this is impressionistic at best, and vertical vs. horizontal in the
technology adoption lines is mostly a side effect of how close the lines
representing the browsers adopting the tech are to one another.

I'm also wondering about when the tech lines are introduced. E.g. web fonts
(in purple, swooping in from the bottom) shows up around 2000 but doesn't hit
a browser version till 2008.

CSS2D transforms (purple, from the top) starts in 2009, swooping backwards in
time to hit Safari 3.1 in 2008.

If these two swoops correspond to the real story that web fonts were designed
much earlier than they were adopted, and CSS2D transforms were implemented
before they were formally designed (perhaps by W3C), then that would be very
cool. But I fear it's just as likely that the introduction points are
arbitrary.

If anyone knows the stories of the design and adoption of CSS2D transforms or
webfonts, I'd be grateful for a little enlightenment.

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xpose2000
Very cool demo of modern web technologies, though things get messy towards the
end with all the intersecting lines.

The most interesting thing about the evolution of the web is when Chrome
arrives in 2008. Chrome has essentially remained unchanged visually since 1.0.
Look at the design of browsers change once Chrome hits. Pretty remarkable.

It's pretty clear that Chrome's release was vital to the modern web of today.
The most obvious one is the GUI, but they changed the game for web
technologies and the speed at which we interact with the web.

Firefox introduced extensions and changed the game for a lot of us. Then they
basically took a nap for 5 years until Chrome came out. I wish I knew what
went wrong...

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TamDenholm
Nice visualisation, very pretty but as others have stated, not very usable.
One thing this demonstrates clearly is at the breakneck speed the web is
evolving at the moment, the mess from 2008 onwards clearly shows this.

While i wasn't worried before, it kind of reaffirms my feeling of security of
the ability to make a living as a web developer, I doubt i'll starve in the
next 10+ years...

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mrjd
Technology wise I think it's great. However, from a clarity point of view and
ease of interpretation I think it needs more work as it takes a fair amount of
brainpower to try and digest. It's no easy task though picturing the evolution
of the web so hats off to them!

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JymmyZ
This is about as clear a visualization as you can get to show that the mere
existence of Chrome has rewritten what "evolution" means for the web.

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cabalamat
According to the graph, there were 100 million internet users in 1996, and the
same number in 2001.

I find that questionable.

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discountgenius
No Netscape Navigator?

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GigabyteCoin
Where is HTML5?

~~~
Foomandoonian
Bottom, below Chrome.

