July 1, 2010
Today I've decided to start a new Web.
Well, I know it may sound too ambitious. Especially considering I'm starting it out of despair. In my 45, I've never had my own home, a car, etc. I'm creating this project on a 10 years' old desktop, - the first and the only personal computer I ever could afford to buy in my life!
So, I'm creating a Mini Web :)
It's not about "mini" cars, or mobile websites. My niche is a space of simple and minimal webpages. I want to change my life. I want to change the world. So, let's start with changing the Web.
No single person is capable to create the whole Web. And no single person is capable to turn our current BLOATED Web into a small and SIMPLE one. However, it's quite possible to create a search engine that points to simple pages only. And that way, create for visitors a small SIMPLE Web!
The Mini Web is like our current Web, - only better.
Minimum complexity, minimum formatting, minimum ADs.
Information with a clear uncluttered layout.
Who Needs a Simplified Web
1. The first alarming bell was from developers of OLPC (One Laptop per Child) project. Most people in the US still don't understand this: "Half of the world's children have no regular access to electricity." No matter how advanced OLPCs may eventually become, the low-end machines will never be perfect for surfing the full-blown Web. To get most from this purely educational platform, they should use a simplified version of the Web.
2. Shortly later, "netbooks have sent a sort of hot-cold shudder through the computer industry." This is how Wired.com describes a story of their success.
3. Since Apple declared a war to slow Flash apps, iPad's users may only benefit from using a special (Apple's proprietary) cut version of the Web too.
In general, the trend of developing content that is optimized for specific hardware, has always been popular. The most outstanding example is a so called Mobile Web.
Proposed Mini Web is not for mobiles only. And it's not for elite powerful machines (like Apple's Macs). It's for an average user with average worldwide computer. Hopefully, the majority of Internet users!
Could such project be launched ten years ago? Probably. It's quite possible there were similar attempts before (please tell me if you know some). But it would be another story ...
In fact, the Internet began as a clean space of minimalism and simplicity. See, for example, the first page that Tim Berners Lee ever made back at CERN. But history moves in a spiral. And I believe it's a proper timing for it to repeat itself.
My ultimate dream is an Ads-FREE Web. I'm also a big fun of mobile web design's simplicity. However, the real world is not clearly black-and-white. That's why my Mini Web is something in the middle: between ad-free and ad-saturated, between mobile and full Web. The fuzzy, yet more flexible notion.
Search engines are our entry point to the Internet. Some say, they ARE Internet. So, next time you choose which one to use, be sure they will bring to you the right Internet!