

Where is the Web Going? - tadruj
http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/01/where-is-web-going.html

======
grannyg00se
" Within the next few years, technology will improve your life in ways you can
scarcely imagine."

I doubt this. It would be nice if there were some details provided with such a
grand statement.

~~~
cryptoz
Well, the very point being made is that details can't be provided - we can
"scarcely imagine" them. But if you look to the past, I think you can draw
parallels that give the author the benefit of the doubt here. Take a few
select years from the last few decades and look at how "your life" may have
changed as a direct result of technology in the time span of a few years.
Around 1992, the Internet began to fundamentally alter most people's[1] lives
for the better. Most of them never saw it coming. In 2008 or so, the
smartphone app revolution altered developer's lives in a huge way. The
examples abound, but of course it depends on who you are and what "your life"
is. None of this will affect the solitary farmer in China - at least not
directly, nor for a while.

[1] in the developed world. See ~2012 for the developing world.

------
ehutch79
Let me get this straight here. Bookmarking, re-tweeting, and posting links on
tumblr count as content creation for the purposes of this article?

I'm a bit incredulous as I don't really see it as such. I'd venture to say
that you still only have ~1% of users creating content with any substance, let
alone quality.

~~~
obituary_latte
Well, technically, doing those things (re-tweeting, posting links, etc.)
creates content... Substance and quality notwithstanding.

~~~
adamc
If posting links was enough to "create content", we could automate a vast
increase in content. Of course, that's nonsense.

What creates content, arguably, is posting the links in a useful context (and
something as simple as knowing your friend likes these might create the
context). I think that value is real (and is reflected in services like
Twitter), but there are some stark limits because my time/interest in
consuming that kind of content is limited. Services that help me navigate the
sea of data to effectively find the pearls of interest will have value. But
just providing more ocean to search through is of limited direct interest...

~~~
HPBEggo
This.

Simply posting something that already exists, be it through a Tweet or a link
or what-have-you, does not create anything of value.

However, creating said link with a short description or within the context of
a greater article does create value. It's not a huge amount of value, but I
know that I, personally, am much more likely to examine a link posted by
someone if they explain what it is about and that explanation is both
interesting and relevant.

------
rglover
_By designing new interfaces, and suddenly making information accessible..._

This is a very important point. Although we do harness a lot of our focus on
creating "new and innovative" products, we mustn't forget about the less-fun
industries that still effect our lives daily. The way that we fix these
industries is through the interface and how we interact with and manipulate
that data (e.g. medical records, tax information, etc.). Take what we've
learned from the companies mentioned here (e.g. Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest)
and apply it to existing industries.

------
zwieback
I agree with the characterization of the past but I don't think curating is
the answer either. You can't easily distill quality content out of a sea of
junk. Much of the best content on the web still comes from traditional
editorial organisations like NYT, Economist, etc. Free-for all social content
works great for sites like StackExchange but I don't even think Quora, which
is kind of like a curator, is going anywhere.

~~~
joebadmo
"...I don't think curating is the answer either. You can't easily distill
quality content out of a sea of junk."

These two sentiments seem contradictory to me. The fact that it's not easy to
filter for quality is what makes curation valuable.

I'm not sure if the dichotomy presented is correct, though. Really, all the
old institutions like the ones you state, are in some sense curators. They
curate news, fact, analysis, etc. The democratization of content creation and
the decoupling of creation and curation means it'll be easier for amateurs to
participate without going through the old bureacratic regimes these
institutions represent.

I think the more interesting frontier is the digital curation by human/machine
teams. You can understand Google and Facebook as curation, too, but they use a
combination of human and algorithmic curation (more G than FB), and to me the
Tumblrs and Quoras seem like a step back toward more heavily human-curated.
I'll be more interested to see more combinations of different people and
different algorithms working on different data.

~~~
zwieback
Ok, but distill != filter. My experience is that no matter whether man or
machine filters content it will not be as good as an expert sitting down
authoring content.

------
konmpar
"Whereas Web 1.0 was characterized by content published from one-to-many and
social media was about easily creating and sharing content, from many-to-many,
the curated web is about capturing and collecting only the content that
matters, from many-to-one."

True story. Personalization is the future. Too many content so far.. take it..
examine it.. deliver it to each person separetely..

------
InclinedPlane
Don't be misled into believing that the web is "going" somewhere merely due to
the success of some high profile growth in certain areas.

Where is the web going?

Everywhere.

If you don't believe that the web will become the backbone of human
communication and the primary repository of recorded knowledge then you simply
aren't paying attention. Facebook and tumblr are interesting sideshows but
they are nothing compared to the real growth of the web, which is proceeding
slowly but surely in the background largely without fanfair.

------
vannevar
I don't think Pinterest is an example of the curated web. It's 4chan for the
scrapbooking crowd. None of the content seems intended to last as some sort of
resource, it is essentially Facebook without anything but the photo-sharing.
Like 4chan, it's a stream of experience where any meaning the content may have
is transient.

------
tadruj
There's also Del.icio.us as a collection/curation platform somewhere between
Twitter and Tumblr.

~~~
iamwil
I've been using delicious again as my bookmarking and curation platform of
choice.

Anyway, I think the author forgot about delicious and flickr, which started in
the early 2000's peaking in media hype around 2005, which sort of changes his
graph and thesis. It's no longer a nice progression of up and to the right. He
just picked out examples that supported his view, and ignore the others that
don't.

~~~
tadruj
Flickr was a failed attempt to understand users and make it simple. It wasn't
made for the masses and there was too much friction.

