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Can't wait for web 3.0

by:Pox

2008/06/01

We've all heard of web2.0, the most annoying catchphrase of 2006. It refers to using the web as everyone's toilet by turning every site into a blog. Anything anyone writes has to be commented on now. You need accounts for everything.
Web 2.0 is basically a corporation making a huge-ass site with a team of programmers and then waiting for users to crank out content for it and cash in.

You know, there's nothing wrong with that, I love youtube and newgrounds.com ( which was there 10 years before youtube btw, and is a full-fledged web 2.0 site).
But hey, there's more and more adds and less and less content on these sites. So let's take a stroll through the different versions of the "web" and try to predict future trends!

SCIENCE!

So let's start with web 1.0. That's basically the web from the mid-90s to maybe 2004-2005.
Let's take a look at a typical page on such a site:

Ok so that's your basic crappy web 1.0 page, just like mine. Requires no fancy code, no database, no team of designers and no education. Just one guy learning the basics of html to make a page about the stuff he likes.

Now let's analyze it in a bit more depth:

Pretty simple stuff. The web 1.0's main characteristics were broken links, un-updated pages, old pieces of design randomly still there and animated GIFs. Can't have a decent web 1.0 site without animated GIFs. Now it's all about imbeded videos. Fuck that, who has time to make videos?

Prime examples of kickass web 1.0 sites:

Maddox
X-Entertainment
Retrocrush
Seanbaby

The web 1.0 relationship can be summed up with this picture:

You, the user, take in whatever the webmaster dishes out. AND YOU LOVE IT.

Now moving on to web 2.0

Take a glance at this front page from the New York times website:

Whew!
What do we notice? First off, it's wider. Now that people have good computers, they can afford to stretch their screen width to 1000 pixels instead of 800.

The balls on them! Ok to be fair a lot of them fit any resolution. Still.

Let's take a closer look:

The motto here is: "Let's cram as MUCH shit as possible in there". Every page on the site leads to every other page on the site.

There's 500 things to click on, it's like a video game. They just want to make sure that should any one bit of information on their entire site might interest you, you'll get to find it. And then they have you because you have to fight a click war to read the whole thing.

Here's how it usually goes: you spot it on the front page. Then you have to find the link in the link jungle near the text that leads to the actual article page.

Once there, you realize that 20% of the page is the article, 60% is adds and 500% is links back to the rest of the damn thing.
Then you read it and WOOPS you only have half of it. You have to "click for more" or "click to continue". That's ok if it's huge, but it's usually shit like a 400 word article divided in 3 parts. Come on.

And you do NOT want to stumble on those top 10 lists that make you click EACH TIME for the next one.

The web 2.0 relationship can be summed up with this picture:

You, the user, take all the stuff in as usual, but you get to participate a little! You think that participation means you're getting a great deal.
Sure...

And now...WEB 3.0

So what's next for us? What's the logical future of the net? What's going to happen with the whole net neutrality shit sandwich?

Net neutrality is something that requires hosting companies to give every site the same load time. They can't cut the juice from some sites just because they don't like em, and they can't give priority to some others because they've been bought off.
How long do we have?

Tv is going down the shitter. Tv sucks ass. No one's going to watch it. Are networks going to take it in the ass? Probably not. I would bet they'll take their money and try to fuck things up on the web, trying to buy off pieces of it so they can sell it back to us.

Will we see a shitload of paysites? Will we still have the surfing freedom we enjoy today?

Who knows?

At any rate, let's try to predict the future of the web!

Ok so you've found the link in Google... SWEET! You click it expecting fresh juicy content, but here's what you'll probably get:

So after 3-4 of these, you FINALLY get the PRIVILEGE to access the site to which you may or may not be a paying member.

First off, notice how wide it is. Yeah the future is all wide-screen ultra-highres. Welcome to micro-font land.
The future is made so you feel bad for having anything less than 50/20 vision. Hence why I predict a sharp increase in Lazik adspace on the net.
Speaking of adspace: holy shit.

You think I'm exaggerating?
I guess you haven't visited Allsp.com
It's a website where you can watch all the South Park episodes for free. Guess how they pay their bills.
What else do we see? Lots of user comments. Users will get to vote, rate, pick, grade, compare, recommend, "digg" EVERYTHING. Every letter of every page. The ads, the links, the names, the content, the fucking LOGO ON TOP.
Everything.

Then notice the flood of links that lead to something else. In the future, 30% of all text on pages will be links and 30% will be the description of said links.Basically each page will be like your entire website summarized so that all of your 10 billion writers and users have a spot on each page and feel important.

And worst of all: the infinite flood of sponsors. As tv dies, the big advertisers will move to the net. You won't be able to check out your daily porn without seeing shampoo commercials and Swiffer bullshit. Who owns that?
Although Swiffer and porn might make for interesting ads.

And the future of youtube also looks bleak. Why does it rock so hard? Because it's backed by so much cash.

AND THERE'S NO ADS

Go to sites like IGN and Gametrailers or whatever crap and you always get a 30 second commercial before your video loads.

Get used to it. Tv is packing its shit up and coming to the web.

And so are magazines and newspapers.

And they want a piece of your ass.

The web 3.0 relationship can be summed up with this picture: