2009 25
The Next Web is the Visual Web
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Over the last couple of years I have been asked a question that I had no answer for: what is the successor of the Web 2.0? What comes after user generated content or P2P? Well I think that the next web is the Visual Web. And I mean visual as opposed to text based web. No, I am not saying that text is dead but I do believe that text as the main driver of the Internet is becoming less and less important. And all other audiovisual means of communication are becoming more important. And that is why I call this new web the Visual Web.
In terms of Telco traffic and ISP the trend towards visual is felt in the enormous traffic increase of TV, high quality pictures, high def video, movies of ever increasing quality, P2P video communications like video calls on Skype, music, and gaming including the new trend to play web served games. Traffic. If the textual web was 90% of the web a few years ago now it´s more like 10%. Even this blog, or the more active version of this blog which is in Spanish, has become more and more a video blog, a photo blog, an image blog. And even text itself is increasingly populated with emoticons, a new type of “letters” that other than the smiley do not exist outside of the web. Text on the web is rarely seen without a visual effect. So much so that when I read books now I find them sorely lacking in visuals, I suffer over long textual descriptions of events or images that would be so much better represented via graphics or art. But this is much easier to do online.
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Roberto Balaguer on May 25, 2009 ·
Me ha gustado mucho este post. Me parece bien que se refiera al futuro de la Web en esos términos ya que la imagen ha sido, para buena parte de la intelectualidad, en general, un ciudadano de segunda. Es bien importante que se la revalorice aun cuando quizás más que un tema de imagen o texto en sí, creo que el futuro de la Web pasa por un mayor acercamiento a lo Real, sin por esto, volverme lacaniano ;). Durante muchos, demasiados años se ha creído y considerado al texto como “la” forma privilegiada de dar cuenta de la realidad. Pero como todos sabemos, la realidad se resiste a pesar de sus opresores, y escapa a los confines de la palabra. El propio Psicoanálisis con su “talking cure” está viviendo un tiempo de revalorización de la imagen y del acto. Me ha gustado mucho esta entrada que da cuenta de este interesante y provocador pronóstico que rescata la injustamente atacada imagen, alejándose de los 1, 2 o 3 punto cero, que aunque también válidos puntos de vista, abordan otras cuestiones inherentes a la Red.
Saludos
javier guilléN on May 25, 2009 ·
The advantage of the icons and images that are universal, not have to be translated into other languages.
Everybody understand this icon 🙂
But I also think that simple websites without images, have a great future 😉
javier guilléN on May 25, 2009 ·
Visual web = Iphone = web 3.0 ?
javier guilléN on May 25, 2009 ·
Sorry again, i am thinking about this post. I think that the main feature of the web 3.0 will be the artificial intelligence and the Knowledge-based systems.
Mariano Marcos on May 25, 2009 ·
I hope you are right.
I’m preparing a tool, vidactio, for making video clickable, linkable and richer. And i’m not the only one.
It will also bring a new way of advertising (non intrusive and where the customers targets himself by selecting the things he is interested in)
I’ll see you there !
AustinTX on May 25, 2009 ·
Well, the successor to Web 2.0 is obviously La Fonera 3.0, right?
=D
Guillermo on May 25, 2009 ·
Well, i can’t see the future, but i don’t agree.
First of all i don’t believe that the so called Web 2.0 really exists. It’s just a fancy name for some things that we, the web developers, were applying just until some marketing bastard got the wonderful idea to call it the “Web 2.0”. I can’t express the amount of noise and bullshit that this term has thrown into the Internet bussiness since it’s creation.
This is not a question about video replacing text. This is more an issue involving: 1) Available bandwidth and 2) Willingness to spend time. For example: i’m expending just 10 minutes of my time in this reply. If i had to reply with a video i wouldn’t even consider it (waste of time and privacy) – not to mention my terrible spoken english…
Anyway, answering the hipothetical question “What’s after Web 2.0?”, i would say: Anything that comes thru the mind of another marketing bastard in some years from now, when we get tired of the “Web 2.0”. They will just take everything that we, the web developers, will be doing in that moment and they will give it a fancy name. As a decision maker, you could have some month’s advantage over competitors if you put your attention on the ones that are really in touch with the technologies applied on websites.
Well, i hope that this gets published 🙂
@Mariano Marcos: That’s just what people want: voluntarily become targets for advertising campaigns… come on. ¬¬
Daniel on May 26, 2009 ·
Hi everybody.
This is an interesting topic. I don’t have a glass ball to look into the future, but I think likely, in a long term, media will use new ways for communicating people, and images will take advantage over other kind of formats. Internet as a media it’s included.
However, I’d like to point at new technologies need a period of time to be accepted and used by the audience, giving an added value to people. In some cases, that period of time use to be pretty long. In this situation, I remember in 1991, there were only few companies which were offering video and streaming as content in their pages. They were hardly used in those days. Many years have gone by, almost 15 or 20, until we have been able to see these formats strongly used. Actually The Web hasn’t changed so much. I realize Web 2.0 is working nowadays, but most of its functions are highly based on text format yet.
To sum up, the progress in technology always moves forward keeping a balance between imaginative thinkers and down-to-earth thinkers. Progress needs both points of view in order to become real, and, it’s a good thing everyone knows how to think about.
All the best.
D.
Joan Sánchez Tuomala on May 26, 2009 ·
A mi lo que me resulta más sugerente es la evolución hacia una web más emocional.
Creo que la revolución o el cambio no está en la tecnologia sinó en el uso personal que le damos.
Lo fascinante de 2.0 es la multilateralidad de la comunicación que plantea, lo que agiliza los procesos de aprendizaje…
Reconozco que asta ahora no habia pensado en ello, pero cuando leía a Martín ni me he fijado en la idea de sustituir el texto por imagen (por otro lado me pareceria lógico, ya que la imagen fija mucho mejor la comunicación) sinó en la idea de una web que tranmita mejor las emociones…
Podemos seguir pensando sobre el tema.
Mariano Marcos on May 26, 2009 ·
@Guillermo
When you make a search on google or click on a link you already show your interests.
But I am not even promoting that. It goes a step further, where targeting is no more needed.
Just an example: If you’re watching Indiana Jones and you want to buy a leather jacket for your granpa, you click on it, see more details and if you want to, you buy it.
As an advertiser, I do not need to know your age, gender, education, income… It’s you, the viewer, the one that takes control of the things he wants to see, when he wants to see them. So, no more 10 minute interruptions while watching your favorite tv shows. No more shampoo ads if you’re bold 🙂
Hope I’ve been able to explain it. thanks,
Mariano
Daniel Barradas on May 26, 2009 ·
I don’t actually agree that the next web is gonna be the visual web.
I think we’re already in it.
My best sense tells me that the next web is gonna revolve around “I have all this visual content … how do I gather, sort and filter what’s important for me?”
My two cents…
Guillermo on May 27, 2009 ·
@Mariano Marcos
Well, I guess I gave you a perfect excuse to explain the service you’re working on. I have to take my words back… Sounds cool.
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javier guilléN on May 25, 2009 ·
The advantage of the icons and images that are universal, not have to be translated into other languages.
Everybody understand this icon 🙂 and is not necesary translate to either languaje.
But I also think that simple websites without images, have a great future 😉