The Evolving Web

Over the years the Web has continuously evolved, in many ways that we could not even have imagined went it all started. A long way have we come, since the days when Amazon was just a bookstore and you would just type in company names into the browser and be amazed that company “A” already had a website.

The Web now has its own power centers. You don’t really think about this in your day to day life, but when we looked to see if company “A” had a website, that was a “normal”, brick and mortar company. Now, the Web has made its own powerhouses such as Google, Yahoo and Amazon. These companies exist because of the Web.

As these Web centric companies evolve and grow, they start to attract people who start to implement new ideas which complement or build on services offered by these giants. In this way, by their own huge “mass” these companies start to attract satellite businesses. Since these are 100% Web companies we could conceivably abstract them into being massive on-line systems, which interact with users, and today, directly with other systems.

Let’s imagine the Web of today, with its millions of servers, interacting with each other, to create mashups, to exchange business data in ways not previously possible, as this mash of lines weaved into a fabric. You could call it the fabric of cyberspace, if you wish. Imagine that this fabric is tightly stretched and offers a level field for all those who wish to come onto it. Well, that is not how the world is, or the Web for that matter. To get a more accurate picture lets go back to imagining that tightly stretched fabric and then imagine that we lay onto that fabric billiards of different sizes and weights. These will cause depressions in the fabric, around them. Smaller billiards placed onto the fabric, will tend to be attracted towards the larger ones, falling into their areas of influence.

That is exactly what happens on the Web, today. Successful Web companies such as Google and eBay, with huge on-line systems, tend to attract groups of smaller companies into their orbits, creating ecosystems composed of clients, suppliers and partners.

Even these large, massive, objects that bend the fabric of the Web around them are sometimes attracted by other larger ones. One example of this could be said to be the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google.

This new Web, has evolved so far from its humble HyperText beginnings that I submit that it is now a whole new fabric; and to set it really apart from its former self, let’s give it a new name, one that seems more in tune with its current form and myriad connections and interactions: The Mash. With its own unique set of behaviors and laws, the Mash is not only an evolution of the Web, but it is fabric in constant state of evolution with new attractors (mashsites!?) continuously coming into being. Some of these will grow; some will be attracted into larger attractors and still others will simply die out.

To not only survive, but to thrive in this new Mash, one must understand its dynamics. The dynamics of a new and fantastic world that is continuously evolving around us and which will continue to do so, in ways and directions which we still cannot fathom. To succeed in this new space, it is imperative that we embrace it and understand its behaviors. It is essential that we be aware that the very fabric of cyberspace has changed and that it will continue to do so.

Anyone who believes that going onto the Web, today, is about creating websites that this is done by coding HTML, XML or whatever other markup languages people wish to think of next, is sadly mistaken. Only by understanding that the Mash is the new Web, where systems interact with one another, where information is continuously available, on-line, all the time and that people everyday rely and depend more and more on this new underlying fabric of our global society will one be ready to meet the challenges ahead.

So, do not despair. Open your eyes and look onto this magic, virtual world of the Mash. Observe and see how the elements interact. Once you start to recognize the patterns, you can start to explore a whole new universe of possibilities. Please, enjoy it while it lasts for, no doubt, a new even more fantastic fabric will be waiting for us, a few years down this path.