Imagine the Web in 20 Years?

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August 1st

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The late Eighties! Mike and the Mechanics were at the top of the charts, George Bush, Senior had just become President of the US, and a CERN contractor by the name of Tim Berners-Lee was busy writing a little paper entitled Information Management: A Proposal. In it he described a way to simplify the sharing of information among people in different locations. He gave it to his manager, Mike Sendall, who thought it was “vague, but exciting.”

Over the following year, Tim and his colleague, Robert Cailliau, refined the idea and updated the proposal. It described a concept called a “WorldWideWeb” — a simple interface for browsing large quantities of information, using hypertext to link documents. Within just a few years it had grown well beyond CERN and the academic realm, and public use of the Internet exploded thanks to this new, more intuitive interface.

It’s amazing to think about how much the Web’s developed since then. We’ve seen:

some of the earliest browsers, such as the WorldWideWeb Browser, Cello, and Mosaic
early debates about the semantic meaning of HTML (where did we go wrong?)
the first appearance of JavaScript and its amazing new features
the first steps into ecommerce
the browser wars (Netscape Now!)
the dot-com bubble and its subsequent implosion
some new up-and-comer called Google
the first blogs
YouTube
the beginnings of the social web, with sites like Orkut and Friendster
the mobile web on phones, handhelds, and tiny laptops

It’s hard to imagine now what life would be like without the Web. Even more obscure to me is this: what would we all be doing if there were no Web, and thus no Web developers, managers, sysadmins, writers, or designers? Twenty years ago I was 12 years old and daydreamed about inventing things. None of my friends and family — including me — would have predicted that my career would be what it is right now.

What’s next for the Web? In twenty years’ time I’ll be pushing fifty and I’m without a clue as to what could be happening by then. In the shorter term, though, I think we’ll see lots of fun stuff develop. Here are three growing trends that I’m excited to watch over the next few years.

Even more web-based applications: Web-based apps have been around for awhile, so this is a no-brainer, but I think it’ll go gangbusters once popular apps reach the mainstream. Thinking about great web apps like 280 Slides, the Aviary graphics apps, Google Apps, and Photoshop Express, I think it’s fair to say that we’re well on the way to a world where everyone — not just us geeks — find it easy to manipulate and store files online. As these applications become simpler and more enjoyable to use, the more likely Joe Sixpack is to adopt it. Best of all, the ability to create brilliant, useful, and unique apps is increasingly available to web developers like you and me.

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