How Will The Web Be Different?

There is so much to think about. On a surface level, it’s important to acknowledge that the web — the way we access it, how we use it, and how we build for it — will all be dramatically different in five or ten years than what we have today. If you are looking, you can see fissures in the large platforms many people use now for websites, caused somewhat by our “grab-and-go” mentality, but also by some remarkable user-experience and design work on the part of this constantly churning ecosystem of new, web startup ventures.

And another piece is that people are moving away from the web being an archive or personal history, maybe in recognition that we all change as we grow older, or maybe because the web is becoming cluttered with outdated, incorrect information without any linear map to show the progression of knowledge. But for whatever reason folks are moving in the direction of a “forgetful web”. We will soon want the web to erase things we’ve posted a year, or five, or ten years ago, instead of keeping it online and searchable for the rest of our lives. Remember the heated political argument you engaged in with an old college classmate on Facebook during the second Bush campaign? Time for that to dissapear.