About To Get Meta
I’m saying this now, it’s geeky. You’ve been warned.
Watch this, it’s about 5 minutes long, but just watch it.
This is some interesting stuff when you think about it. Look at how far the web has come. The fact that I’m linking this video in my blog to share with people whom I know; people whom I think will enjoy this video. This post will be spread via my RSS feed to Facebook, Livejournal, Google, Technochrati, and lord knows whom else. People may or may not link to me. And it’s all based mainly on the users.
When I first put myself up on the web, back in 1997, things were very different. Design and content were hard coded together. Dynamic text? Don’t be absurd. Dynamic uploading of content from anywhere in the world? Crazy. The few with the technological skills were the ones who had all of the power. A personal home page? A thing for nerds.
Fast forward to the fall of 2000 when I entered Princeton. We (and by we, the geeks, really) had made strides. We’d begun tryign to seperate content from design. ASP, Coldfusion and CGI were now being used to create dynamic web applications. Software like Dreamweaver and Frontpage (ewww) were making web design more accessable to the non geeks. The web was becoming a bit more normal, more everyday. But still, it wasn’t everyone. And the idea of everyone contributing, having a voice, was still only in theory.
Go forward to the winter of 2003, and the start of this site. Blog sites were sprouting. Blogging software was beign deployed by people. Sure it was mainly the tech savey, but still, dynamic content was HERE and NOW. If you were static, you weren’t with it anymore. PHP was the hotness and seperating content from design was now a major thing. Having to change PHP pages to change layout was not optimal. (It was actually a bit of a pain) CSS was standardized now, the browsers didn’t support it the same, but still, there was a starting point.
Now fast forward to winter of 2007. It’s been 4 years and look where we are. Dynamic content? It’s a given. AJAX has changed how web applications are done. But applications aren’t what’s hot, applications are passe. Now it’s all about communities. Individuals coming together, sharing their ideas, thoughts, stories, pictures and movies. The tech-aristocracy, those with the vast knowledge, have made it accessable to the masses. Everyone is a part of if. Information, from the people, by the people, for the people, is here.
In 10 years, theory became practice. The internet truly is a global community. I’m begining to think this Web 2.0 stuff may be right.
Digital Copyright, Software, Technology, The Internet, Web Development
