

Website of the future: what does it look like? - mbriyo

I am looking for examples that illustrate cutting edge innovation in the following areas:
website navigation
content
community
customization
commerce
support<p>thanks!
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petercooper
Be aware of a problem here. If you go back several years and look at sites
people defined as "cutting edge" or "futuristic", they were mostly gawdy
Flash-ridden wastes of space that were certainly unique, but ultimately
unusable and hard on the eyes. Even if you go back just a year, Adobe's Flex
was being touted by many as a way of the future - especially in e-commerce -
yet take a look at Amazon now. It's evolved, but not in that way.

Looking at the high-end fashion catwalks to predict consumer fashions for the
next decade doesn't work. So it goes with Web design. Remember that the future
is made of lots of tiny changes compounded - not large sweeping innovations.

~~~
mlLK
2advanced.com; when I was a young chap I'd spend hours just mulling over Eric
Jordan's stuff.

~~~
lunaru
So I'm not the only one! Ah to be 16 again... everything flashy was good.

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dmose
I'm a big fan of the 'grunge' trend we're starting to see

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/29/grunge-style-
in-m...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/29/grunge-style-in-modern-
web-design/)

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raheemm
With mobile devices growing - I think the website of the future will have a
strong component on accessibility from various screen sizes. Another feature
that will become important is having offline mode/app to enable data access,
synchronization, etc.

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beaudeal
Aza Raskin is developing some really cool technology over at Mozilla, dealing
with things such as user interface and intuitive design. I expect that some of
what he is producing now will be standard within the next couple of years, for
example Geode, which was discussed yesterday
(<http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/10/introducing-geode/>).

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bouncingsoul
_A short while back, the folks at Adaptive Path invited me and the gang at
Unit to contribute to a cool project they had in the works for Mozilla Labs.
Our part would be to design how The New York Times sports page would look a
few years into the future._

<http://www.andyrutledge.com/times-new-omen.php>

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mbuchanan
I've got some innovation going at <http://www.nestedguis.com>. (update:
previous link was wrong)

Louis Gray blogged about it.. [http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/09/will-
future-informatio...](http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/09/will-future-
information-consumption-be.html)

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timcederman
My top sites of the moment that to be are trend leaders:

<http://www.mint.com/>

<http://www.tripit.com/>

<http://www.yelp.com/>

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mmohan
the website of the future will be a wiki. Simple navigation, lots of content,
but based on real impressions of your company by customers, partners etc.
instead of propaganda from the company.

~~~
hugh
Do you honestly think that's not a terrible idea? Replacing your company
website with a wiki?

Maybe there's a tiny minority of companies for which that would work -- they'd
be small, obscure, have a loyal fanbase, and almost never piss anyone off. For
anyone else it's a disaster -- all you need is one disgruntled customer (or
fanboy for the competition) with too much time on his hands.

~~~
tdavidson
It's not just the "control content from one bad seed" issue. Wikis are great
to solve some problems, deliver some content, etc, but they're not the answer
for everyone. There are different levels of transparency for us to explore...

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mtw
apple.com (navigation, commerce)

amazon (especially for nagivation, also commerce)

facebook (for community)

nytimes (for content)

backpack

