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Website of the future: what does it look like?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Website of the future: what does it look like?

#2

Post by petercooper »

Be aware of a problem here. If you go back several years and look at sites people defined as "cutting edge" or "futuristic", they were mostly gawdy Flash-ridden wastes of space that were certainly unique, but ultimately unusable and hard on the eyes. Even if you go back just a year, Adobe's Flex was being touted by many as a way of the future - especially in e-commerce - yet take a look at Amazon now. It's evolved, but not in that way.

Looking at the high-end fashion catwalks to predict consumer fashions for the next decade doesn't work. So it goes with Web design. Remember that the future is made of lots of tiny changes compounded - not large sweeping innovations.

Re: Website of the future: what does it look like?

#3

Post by mbriyo »

petercooper wrote: post #2

Be aware of a problem here. If you go back several years and look at sites people defined as "cutting edge" or "futuristic", they were mostly gawdy Flash-ridden wastes of space that were certainly unique, but ultimately unusable and hard on the eyes. Even if you go back just a year, Adobe's Flex was being touted by many as a way of the future - especially in e-commerce - yet take a look at Amazon now. It's evolved, b…

so true. But still, I feel that with a big enough sample you can make some assumptions about what people feel is emerging. And I trust that the audience of this blog are more likely to have an interesting point of view...

Re: Website of the future: what does it look like?

#6

Post by hugh »

mmohan wrote: post #5

the website of the future will be a wiki. Simple navigation, lots of content, but based on real impressions of your company by customers, partners etc. instead of propaganda from the company.

Do you honestly think that's not a terrible idea? Replacing your company website with a wiki?

Maybe there's a tiny minority of companies for which that would work -- they'd be small, obscure, have a loyal fanbase, and almost never piss anyone off. For anyone else it's a disaster -- all you need is one disgruntled customer (or fanboy for the competition) with too much time on his hands.

Re: Website of the future: what does it look like?

#8

Post by mixmax »

mbriyo wrote: post #3
petercooper wrote: post #2

Be aware of a problem here. If you go back several years and look at sites people defined as "cutting edge" or "futuristic", they were mostly gawdy Flash-ridden wastes of space that were certainly unique, but ultimately unusable and hard on the eyes. Even if you go back just a year, Adobe's Flex was being touted by many as a way of the future - especially in e-commerce - yet take a look at Amazon now. It's evolved, b…

so true. But still, I feel that with a big enough sample you can make some assumptions about what people feel is emerging. And I trust that the audience of this blog are more likely to have an interesting point of view...

The problem is that if you take a sample of people (even smart ones) and ask them what they think the future holds they will almost certainly be wrong.

Re: Website of the future: what does it look like?

#9

Post by dgabriel »

mixmax wrote: post #8
mbriyo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so true. But still, I feel that with a big enough sample you can make some assumptions about what people feel is emerging. And I trust that the audience of this blog are more likely to have an interesting point of view...

The problem is that if you take a sample of people (even smart ones) and ask them what they think the future holds they will almost certainly be wrong.

Which is exactly why paleo-futurism can be quite funny.
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