Surveying the Landscape Sept. 2016

From native apps to closed platforms to messenger bots, there are many threats to the influence and long-term health of the web. But perhaps its not time to give up on the browser just yet: the web could be sufficiently flexible to find new roles and new opportunities in the technology landscape of today and the near future.
Presented at Front End Conf, Zürich

Transcript

1. Surveying the Landscape September 2016
2. Peter Gasston Senior C.T. at +rehabstudio @stopsatgreen
5. The realistic danger isn’t that the web disappears, but that it gets marginalized. medium.com/@cdixon/the-internet-economy-fc43f3eff58a Chris Dixon
6. Apps Android, iOS
7. In 2016, the still-vast and still-growing web is comparatively diminished. Slightly newer platforms, such as Instagram and Vine, hardly touch it; Snapchat doesn’t even acknowledge it. theawl.com/2016/02/been-stuck-at-99-percent-for-like-a-year John Herrman
8. App-only Strategy e.g. Myntra, Flipkart
9. Apple Universal links
11. Doorslams At best, very annoying
12. twitter.com/zachleat/status/731659515154681857
13. Advertising And worse, tracking
14. secretmedia.com/secretmedianews
15. Nearly one in two internet users say privacy and security concerns have stopped them from doing basic things online. washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/05/13/new-government-data-shows-a-staggering-number-of-americans-have-stopped-basic-online-activities/
16. 21% of smartphone users block ads from mobile web. pagefair.com/blog/2016/mobile-adblocking-report
17. 2013 2014 2015 2016 wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/10/02/ad-blockers $7.2B $11.7B $21.8B $41.4B
18. Monetisation Free, ad-supported isn’t sustainable
19. Having a legacy business configured around a website is now almost as much of a headache as the rumbling printing press, fuelled by paper and money. theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/21/publishers-adblocking-advertising-mobile Emily Bell
20. The New Day Launched with no website.
21. The idea won’t be to start a website. That will be dead.
 The individual website won’t matter. forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2015/09/09/mediums-evan-williams-to-publishers-your-website-is-toast/ Evan Williams
23. Running our own blog system is a classic case of the cobbler’s shoe syndrome. m.signalvnoise.com/signal-v-noise-moves-to-medium-c8083ce19686 David Heinemeier Hansson
24. A lot of designers are still focused on building websites and I'm not sure that's a growth business anymore. mashable.com/2016/05/30/facebook-end-of-websites …
25. Mobile has fundamentally changed the dynamics of how information is distributed. mashable.com/2016/05/30/facebook-end-of-websites Jon Lax
26. Industry Changes Acquisitions, closures
27. nytimes.com/2016/04/18/business/media-websites-battle-falteringad-revenue-and-traffic.html Everyone else New $ spent in US online advertising, Q1 2016
28. Facebook 1.7bn monthly active users 3.45bn 1.7bn
29. portals search platforms 1995-2001 2002-2013 2014-
30. Platforms Medium, Twitter, especially Facebook
31. Upload Complete The Awl theawl.com/2016/02/been-stuck-at-99-percent-for-like-a-year
32. A company that can claim nearly every internet-using adult as a user is less a partner than a context. nytimes.com/2016/08/28/magazine/inside-facebooks-totally-insane-unintentionally-gigantic-hyperpartisan-political-media-machine.html John Herrman
33. The new technologies of the 20th century eventually evolved into privately controlled industrial behemoths through which the flow and nature of content would be strictly controlled. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires Tim Wu
34. 0 1 2 3 4 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Social Media Messaging Internet
35. 108m people in India came online in 2015 864m not yet online youtube.com/watch?v=E6hGubMkNfM
36. 1 hour of minimum wage Cost of visiting 15 web pages in India (estimate) Photo: Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters
37. The Facebook-Loving Farmers of Myanmar The Atlantic theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-facebook-loving-farmers-of-myanmar/424812
38. 15% of avg. months income For 1GB prepaid data in Myanmar (estimate) Photo: Lauren Leatherby / NPR
39. The telcos operate on pre-paid systems. Nobody has a credit card. Everyone buys top-up from top-up shops… They feel each megabyte. theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-facebook-loving-farmers-of-myanmar/424812 …
40. Facebook has a compelling advantage over other news apps or even Twitter: The content of many posts and news items live inside Facebook itself. theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-facebook-loving-farmers-of-myanmar/424812 Craig Mod
41. Awareness of the internet in developing countries is very limited. In fact, for many users, Facebook is the internet, as it’s often the only accessible application. qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/ Leo Mirani
42. qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/ Internet users and Facebook users per 100 people 0 12.5 25 37.5 50 Myanmar Indonesia Philippines Thailand Internet Facebook
43. The amount of content that lives in Facebook will only increase. For those who are data sensitive, this is a clear virtue. theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-facebook-loving-farmers-of-myanmar/424812/ Craig Mod
44. Instant Articles Stories rendered in Facebook UI
45. Stories [shared on Facebook] take an average of eight seconds to load, by far the slowest single content type. media.fb.com/2015/05/12/instantarticles
46. Instant Articles makes the reading experience as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles. media.fb.com/2015/05/12/instantarticles
47. Rise of the meta platforms and the new ‘web browser’ Paul Kinlan paul.kinlan.me/rise-of-the-meta-platforms
49. Many of the platforms on mobile are choosing to host content within their own app and this is a direct and compelling threat to the web. paul.kinlan.me/rise-of-the-meta-platforms Paul Kinlan
50. AMP?
51. Canvas Ads Facebook canvas.facebook.com
52. Canvas loads quickly, as much as ten times faster than the standard mobile web. canvas.facebook.com
53. Shopping & Services Facebook venturebeat.com/2016/08/03/facebook-adds-shopping-and-services-sections-to-pages
54. In a way, Facebook [has] made the browser wars irrelevant by essentially itself becoming the browser. medium.freecodecamp.com/ghost-in-the-machine-snapchat-isnt-mobile-first-it-s-something-else-entirely-4f6c265152a2 Ben Basche
55. The more it succeeds, the more Facebook warps a universe of internet content, industry norms, and consumer habits around itself.
 Facebook in effect becomes the mobile internet. wired.com/2016/08/facebook-isnt-just-good-mobile-mobile-works-now/ Davey Alba
56. Dominant Social Platforms ஙמ (WeChat), Line, Kakao
57. kpcb.com/blog/2016-internet-trends-report
58. Messaging Platforms Messenger, Kik, Slack
59. Messaging apps are the new browsers. Anthony Green
60. Daily and weekly use cases dominate the apps that get downloaded and used. But what about the software we use less often… … news.greylock.com/the-conversational-economy-whats-causing-the-bot-craze-4dd8f1b44ba1
61. … the brands we may interact with once only every few months, or spontaneously when we don’t have a fast connection? Sarah Guo news.greylock.com/the-conversational-economy-whats-causing-the-bot-craze-4dd8f1b44ba1
62. Bots Messenger, Telegram, Skype
63. Messaging apps are the new browsers, bots are the new web pages. Anthony Green
64. twitter.com/chrismessina/status/725197835134603264
65. Apps in Messaging iMessage, Allo, FB Messenger
66. Android Instant Apps On-demand app fragments
67. twitter.com/lukew/status/751438493650264066
68. Voice / No UI Echo, Google Home
69. Wow… that was heavy.
70. twitter.com/robertnyman/status/707500942648856577
71. Access method for mobile shoppers % France Italy Spain UK Germany 52.1 59.3 43.1 44.7 41.9 60.1 60.5 66.4 66.6 67.3 Browser App comscore.com/Insights/Data-Mine/Mobile-App-vs-Mobile-Browser
72. The best way to reach new consumers is through the open web. Jason Karaian
73. WeChat ஙמ
74. While in the West companies are still native-first (usually iOS-first), in China the most important presence one may have is a mobile-optimised website. medium.com/@alxdwn/debunking-wechat-e5805e358f8 Alessio Basso
75. App-only Strategy Flipkart, Myrna
76. twitter.com/mikehall314/status/723074895085711360
78. Flipkart Lite 70% increase in conversions from home screen icon
79. Progressive Web Apps Engaging, Installable, Shareable, FAST developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps
80. wired.com/2016/04/wait-web-isnt-really-dead-google-made-sure
82. twitter.com/beep/status/741335390964092928
83. Technology does not have intrinsic value. It has to deliver value by enhancing the way we experience the world around us. wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2015/11/features/wired-world-2016-yves-behar Yves Behar
84. Physical Web Nearby Notifications
85. Light Apps ᫷ଫአ liveapp.cn/case
86. Web Bluetooth Pair with BLE devices
87. Choosing the web to enable experiences in the physical world doesn’t just expand the possibility space for IoT, it compels us to re-think the very shape of the web… slideshare.net/yiibu/the-internet-of-things-is-for-people …
88. … from a network of monolithic ‘destinations’ to one of small, non-linear, distributed, and serendipitously discoverable (and ideally shareable) experiences. slideshare.net/yiibu/the-internet-of-things-is-for-people Stephanie & Bryan Rieger
89. Web VR Oculus, Cardboard, etc
90. In the context of AR, equating the browser to web is not only inaccurate but limiting. medium.com/web-ar/new-challenges-ar-will-pose-for-the-web-48b754dfcdbc ‘saranyan’
91. If we are going to continue to use “the web” as a label then it needs to represent a 20+ year vision that transcends web browsers. wirfs-brock.com/allen/posts/459 Allen Wirfs-Brock
92. I don’t define “the web” as websites alone, but rather as any user experience that’s delivered across multiple channels and devices. recode.net/2016/6/3/11841458/heres-how-the-web-gets-conversation-optimized Dries Buytaert
93. What if everything was powered by “The Web”, but you never saw a browser? medium.com/dev-channel/the-headless-web-de81ab21651f Paul Kinlan
94. Notifications Information unbundled from interface
95. Rich local discovery Contextual actions expressed in site
96. Embedded content Powered by the web
97. A containerized, embeddable article that travels to any site with brand, revenue, analytics, and links attached. medium.com/@stephanierieger/why-conversational-commerce-may-be-our-best-chance-to-re-imagine-the-web-32af5e22f799 Kevin Kelly
98. The universally accessible, multi-device and multi-context web is there to enhance native infrastructure — not the other way around. medium.com/@stephanierieger/why-conversational-commerce-may-be-our-best-chance-to-re-imagine-the-web-32af5e22f799 Stephanie Rieger
99. twitter.com/littlecalculist/status/728328046332121089
100. The web we build today will be the foundation for generations to come. It's crucial we get this right. buytaert.net/can-we-save-the-open-web Dries Buytaert
101. I Am Peter Gasston @stopsatgreen