interesting
I thought this e-newsletter article worthy of passing along. -- Jackie
Subject: Lighthouse, December 14
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 00:46:20 +1100
______________________________In the mythology of the wired class, Internet life moves at a faster pace
than normal life: Web years pass at seven times the speed of real-world
life. Savvy Web designers normally take a year or two to shake off this
conceit, but after that they wonder how they could ever have believed it.
The Web of late 1998 looks on the surface much like the Web of early 1997.
There's no more Java than there was a year or two ago, no more Shockwave for
Director. Plug-ins are just about dead. Dynamic HTML? Tell me if you see
any.A slew of cutting-edge sites have actually regressed their sites. Driven by
usability research, Discovery Online ditched its beautiful front page for an
effort much more like a traditional table of contents. Hotwired finally
realised that its fancy, illegible site was sending users away. Macmillan
Computer Publishing took down a spectacular large-image-and-JavaScript
entry. Meanwhile, the sites that are prospering in the online commerce
craze - Amazon and Yahoo! - are using 1996 technology and barely any
graphics at all.Do you get the idea? The Web hasn't been changing its look radically, and it
isn't about to change in 1999. More and more sites are adjusting their
technology to the needs of an installed base of two-year-old browsers and
33k connections. The "Yahoo! look", with its text-based navigation and clear
hierarchies, is taking over.At some stage in 1999, the Web will see a backlash against the pared-back
low-graphics look, if only because the slew of Yahoo mimics will realise
they've made themselves utterly unmemorable. But 1998's basic constraints
will remain. Sites can't get much more fancy because a sizeable slice of the
market finds the version 3.0 browsers perfectly usable, and because home
users can't see the value in connections above 56k. Bandwidth isn't
expanding. There's no imminent increase in modem capabilities above 56k;
ISDN costs big money and Telstra's high-priced and buggy Big Pond Cable
service has been slow to attract buyers too.Any changes which 1999 does bring will come not to the surface of Web sites
but to their undersides - the same place that saw most of the 1998 action.
You'll see - actually, you won't see, but the technology will be there -
even more database-driven Web sites. Most will use the emerging standards of
Microsoft's ASP or Allaire's increasingly common Cold Fusion to process
information.One fearless prediction: no-one will come up with the killer software
application that does away with the hard work of database planning, creation
and maintenance. That will keep SQL expertise as a solid meal ticket, and
ensure Web-surfers see a rising number of error messages explaining that
very unexplanatory way that "this object has been moved". XML - Extensible
Markup Language - promises to tie the Web even more strongly to databases,
but 1999 will be a year of cautious XML exploration. (The software press
loves a good acronym, but too many IT chieftains still remember their last
technological overheating in the Great Java Craze of early '97. )The other Internet technologies making gentle forward progress will be the
ones no-one writes overexcited articles about any more. JavaScript will make
a gradual comeback as the installed base of older browsers slowly shrinks.
And multimedia e-mail will turn up in more and more inboxes. This trend will
be all but invisible in the Internet press, since e-mail is too dull to
write about.One of e-mail's great virtues is that people can use it. 1999 will almost
certainly accelerate this year's rush into Web site usability, as
site-builders realise navigational and technological complications are
turning users away.As 1999 continues the long retreat from the heights of hype reached in early
1997, one last trend will also show itself. Increasingly, we'll see and hear
Web "veterans" bemoaning the good old days, when Netscape was young and
blinking text was still exciting. Their eyes will shine suddenly at the
mention of the phrase "client-side Java". Then they'll remember that they're
in 1999, when nothing much happens any more.______________________________________________
For links and download URLs, see http://www.shorewalker.com
Please mail me if you have any trouble accessing the site, or if you want
to remove yourself from this list.Cheers, David Walker
E-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lighthouse on the Web: http://www.shorewalker.com
______________________________________________--
Jackie Engle
http://members.xoom.com/noBAC/
Drive sane and sober during the holidays ... and every day
with zero BAC (blood-alcohol content)
