mediajunk

In my last entry, I argued that we were seeing the end of the internet era. My thinking was that the Cambrian explosion in internet technologies has ground to a halt. Websites have become standardised -- two column or three column layout, horizontal tabbed main menu, vertical local menu. HTML, like the QWERTY keyboard, is here to stay.

Today, cyberfriends, I want to tell you that it's not all doom and gloom. Yes, the internet revolution is over, but only in its technical domain. Now that the dust has settled, and the internet is just infrastructure, a new revolution beckons: an innovation explosion.

Reiner Evans of Trendwatching believes there has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur.

Trendwatching identifies patterns in market innovations and new consumer behaviour. While a fraction of this innovation comes from new web-based businesses, the internet is driving innovation in offline sectors.

The internet has unleashed a global infolust, where consumers invest their time (and, for many, enjoy) researching how to get the cheapest flights to Bratislava; the best hotel for their budget; the DVD player that can play their Divx movies; a pink version of that Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie; etc. As Trendwatching puts it:

Experienced consumers are lusting after detailed information on where to get the best of the best, the cheapest of the cheapest, the first of the first, the healthiest of the healthiest, the coolest of the coolest, or on how to become the smartest of the smartest. Instant information gratification is upon us.

So what's that got to do with innovation? As any Darwinist knows, when the environment changes quickly, organisms change quickly too. The consumer environment -- a.k.a. the market -- has changed, changed utterly. Products and services are rapidly mutating. But only the fittest will survive.

As I was reading Read/Write Web's predictions for 2008, it struck me: there will be no dramatic new web-based technologies this coming year, or (perhaps) ever again.

The Internet Era, which began in the early 1990s, is coming to an end. Web 2.0 did not signal a new acceleration in technological development; rather, it was an afterthought, an increase in both usability and availability of online tools, allowing the public to engage on a mass scale.

Yes, we are going to see further enhancements to social networking sites, and more user-generated content. And yes, technologies such as online video will continue to improve.

But the pace of change engendered by internet technologies has definitely begun to slow down. The web in 2008 will not be altogether different from the web in 2007. One sarcastic commenter on Read/Write Web said his number one prediction for 2008 was that there will be "Way more cute cat videos on the web".

The internet revolution is over. The next technological revolution will happen elsewhere.

Update: Reading Sitepoint's Future of the Web in 2008 has strengthened my belief that things are happening a lot more slowly in webland these days.