The Web is dead.
Out of context: Reply #13
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- lukus_W0
"The top 10 Web sites accounted for 31 percent of US pageviews in 2001, 40 percent in 2006, and about 75 percent in 2010."
A large percentage of people currently use the web as an alternative to the down-time they'd have traditionally dedicated to TV. Using youtube, facebook, twitter etc to access content that's heavily targeted towards them as consumers.
They're people who are replacing their standard mainstream media channels with alternative mainstream outlets that live on the web.
I think this is a straight paradigm switch, but hopefully it's not always going to be this way. There's still beauty in the web system - because alternatives _can_ exist. The underground still has as much validity as the mainstream, because broadcast technology isn't in the hands of a few gatekeepers (like it was in the age of TV).
Of course, this could change .. a heavily filtered, prioritised web might put an end to the democratisation of the web. I wish net-neutrality had a name that was more instantly understandable .. if the term wasn't so cryptic to uninitiated ears, it might be easier for it to seep into the public consciousness as a necessary requirement for public good.
As for the change in most dominant web applications - I think that the chart is misleading. Video is now seen as a a dominant application - but how's video generally delivered?? Through the web.
Wired is great at speculating and hyping - but I don't think it gets things right so often. I remember in 1997 when Wired was hyping PointCast .. push media seemed like a prospect because we all had super slow modems, and getting media delivered to us over night seemed like a logical solution. Scientists had declared that 56k was about the limit for getting data over copper lines BUT - cable modems were invented and then ADSL proliferated changing everything completely. It's impossible to predict the future, because it's so difficult to predict the introduction of these technologies which change the rules.
I think the main effect of the article is green-light approval for businesses wanting to create gated communities, and filtered / controlled web experiences through app-based interfaces. It's not the most responsible type of journalism.