The state of the web today
Everything web design, looks and sounds so different, nowadays!
When Pigtail Pundits started in 1997, we saw an opportunity on the web. One of the most exciting mediums of our times. Woefully short on communications professionals.
Circa 1997. On the early web, life was simple. Selling was a lot harder.
The web business has changed a lot since when we first got into it in 1997. 12 years on and when I look at the progress on the www, it's indeed breathtaking.
When we started in 1997, a bit of html, some javascript, a knowledge of ftp and some persuasion ability with the client was enough, to get the job done.
The technology later evolved to a bit of Perl and PHP if you were serious, but that too wasn't needed most of the while. SEO was easy and any idiot could it. Measurement was neither known, nor asked for.
Selling the web was hard, though. Few people knew about it and it was used as a fashion statement on visiting cards then. I still remember that it took us many, many visits and phone calls to clients to persuade them to see the need for a web site.
Circa 2009. On the mature web, life and selling are both complex. Today, everything on the web has become a science, nay an art. First, it's a bunch of micro-disciplines. Two, every micro discipline has taken an art form
The design space is complex already
We have progressed from simple html. Now, there is Xhtml, XML / XSLT
and CSS deep enough to bury yourself. There are myriad forms of JavaScript libraries – JQuery , Dojo, Mootools ... each with its own effects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQMnpUsj8I&feature=fvsr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mwKq7_JlS8
Web copy writing which has taken its roots from direct mail copy, has evolved into its own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0VYRev7_bQ
Technology has multiplied and continues to do so exponentially
The technology for creating web sites has evolved into content management systems that are fast replacing even simple html/ css web sites. There were an astonishing 1074 CMS systems when I last counted at, CMS Matrix.
Open Source software such as Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress are CMS systems which are deep enough to keep you engaged forever. Sourceforge the open source software repository lists 230,000 projects and 2 million registered users as of February 2009. To my mind, almost every piece of software needed for small and medium businesses is already there on Sourceforge, free of charge.
The number and complexity of programming languages seem scary.
Flash has matured into Flex. Microsoft, not be left behind, has come out with its version Silverlight. Flash-based CMS systems driven with XML based text are gaining ground.
And even graphic tools such as InDesign and QuarkXpress, which were once completely designed for print-based work, have now sprouted support for pdfs, xhtml, xml and swf files.
Online Promotion has come a full circle.
From easy to sophisticated to completely complex, now.
The Web 2.0 revolution and the social web has introduced a new set of tools for optimization. The Search Engine algorithms too have become more complex. And the science has evolved for practitioners.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
From simple SEO, it has now become SEM, Social Media Optimization, Link building, link baiting, viral marketing, Online PR, Blogging, and more...
Online Advertising has changed from text ads in ezines and banners in portals, to still that + PPC , Adsense , Affiliate Advertsing, Online Classified Advertising, Social Network Advertising and Email Marketing. I have left out Yahoo and MSN out of that, have I?
Measurement is now de rigueur
Google Analytics, Urchin, Unica and Omniture have evolved systems that take a whole bunch of time to even comprehend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpDxGrSqA-E&feature=PlayList&p=B4267C24B2273B9C&index=0&playnext=1
Communities are in, brochureware is out
The entire notion of community, has been made more “elegant”, to use Mark Zuckerberg's phrase. Generic Social Networking has matured and niche social sites are now sprouting.
The technology for creating social networks is available in a variety of shades: JomSocial for Joomla, BuddyPress for WordPress Multi-user edition and natively for Drupal using modules. In fact, most of the CMS systems offer social networking in some form or the other.
Besides, a whole bunch of open source software tout social networking possibilities.
The social nature of the web has made brochure-ware, one-way speaking corporate sites out-of-fashion. But that is another subject altogether and we shall take that up later.
The complexity of Hosting
Hosting has graduated from simple shared hosting and dedicated servers to cloud computing, grid layer, VPS. And Virtual Storage.
There are a whole bunch of hosting agencies which are taking advantage of advances in technology and the mushrooming of open source software to engage in value-added hosting.
All the changes of course, have affected how companies do business. Both within the industry and at the client level.
We shall take the impact of the changes separately.
