Wired: The Web Is Dead. Long Live The Internet: the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting...... You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone. ..... the top 10 Web sites accounted for 31 percent of US pageviews in 2001, 40 percent in 2006, and about 75 percent in 2010. ..... semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. ...... a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. ...... First Java, then Flash, then Ajax, then HTML5 — increasingly interactive online code — promised to put all apps in the cloud and replace the desktop with the webtop. Open, free, and out of control. ..... the machine-to-machine future that would be less about browsing and more about getting. ...... the Internet has meant the breakdown of incumbent businesses and traditional power structures ..... about 35 percent of all our media time is now spent on the Web — but ad dollars weren’t keeping pace. ..... TV — which also accounts for 35 percent of our media time, gets nearly 40 percent of ad dollars. ..... The Web is, after all, just one of many applications that exist on the Internet ..... The applications that account for more of the Internet’s traffic include peer-to-peer file transfers, email, company VPNs, the machine-to-machine communications of APIs, Skype calls, World of Warcraft and other online games, Xbox Live, iTunes, voice-over-IP phones, iChat, and Netflix movie streaming. ...... the general-purpose browser. They use the Net, but not the Web. Fast beats flexible. ....... “It is a mistake to think of the Web browser as the apex of the PC’s evolution.” ...... the rise of junk-shop content providers — like Demand Media — which have determined that the only way to make money online is to spend even less on content than advertisers are willing to pay to advertise against it. This further cheapens online content, makes visitors even less valuable, and continues to diminish the credibility of the medium. ....... Every time you pick an iPhone app instead of a Web site, you are voting with your finger: A better experience is worth paying for, either in cash or in implicit acceptance of a non-Web standard. ..... While Google may have controlled traffic and sales, Apple controls the content itself. ..... the business forces lining up behind closed platforms are big and getting bigger. This is seen by many as a battle for the soul of the digital frontier..... Ecommerce continues to thrive on the Web, and no company is going to shut its Web site as an information resource. .... The Internet is the real revolution, as important as electricity; what we do with it is still evolving.
This Wired article has created quite a ruckus. But most people who have talked about it have missed the second part of the headline. Long live the internet. Even so, I think the iPhone is going to be a blip in the long run. The small screen web is going to feel like the big screen web, only on a smaller screen. Walled gardens have limited utility. The browser itself will morph.
I think this web is dead thinking is reflective of the hard economic times we are in. This thinking will evaporate after a turn around.
What's problematic about the diagram above is it is not counting video to be part of the web experience. The truth is video is part of the web experience that is exploding. The primarily text based web might be on the wane, but then the web was always meant to be a multi-media experience.
The biggest problem with the graph above is that it deals with percentages. The internet has been exploding. A 10% share today is not the same as a 40% share 10 years ago or a 70% share 15 years ago. I have a hard time believing the browser's share in terms of total number of users has not grown every year.
The open web is worth fighting for. Free trade is worth fighting for.
But, yes, the real product is the internet. The browser is just one way to access that internet. It remains my favorite way. I can't wait for HTML 5 to go mainstream.
A Fragmenting Web?
Is The Mobile Web In A Category Of Its Own?
Information Overload And Twitter
YouTube And Online Movies
HTML 5 Browser Wars
Image via WikipediaWhen we get there it will be like there is just one operating system on all smartphones and tablets. Better, it will be like there is not even an operating system. The browser is all you need. And it will be a rich browser. 
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