A campus administrator has invited me to consult on a web project. Now I’m pondering what a 2009 model website should be. What it should do. What others should be able to do with it.
But my ideas are of little value if the administrator’s concepts of the web are different from mine. And they will be. We’re both over 20. And anyone over age 20 has too many ways to think about the web for us all be on the same web page.
By my count, we have created at least 10 distinct and increasingly sophisticated metaphors for the web in 15 years. Moore’s Law apparently applies to technology metaphors too.
Metaphors help us understand something new and unfamiliar in terms of something we already know. But so many competing metaphors conflict and confound. They help us understand what the web is, but they also limit our ability to imagine what the web could be.
The web metaphor inventory in more-or-less chronological order:
Web as a spider’s web
- Thus the name. (If you still think of the web as a spider’s web, you might consider investing in some CD’s from the Video Professor)
Web as a transportation system
- One route on the information superhighway. (This metaphor has apparently been relegated to Al Gore’s lock box)
Web as real estate
- “We developed a new home page on our web site.”
- “Our web address is . . . “
Web as a library
- A collection of knowledge organized, categorized, indexed, and tagged with metadata.
- We browse the web as we browse books on a shelf.
Web as paper/printing
- We publish web pages. (The fact that a single web page doesn’t always have the same content vexes those stuck on this metaphor. Damn you Ajax and DHTML).
- We (used to) post notes on bulletin boards.
- We read websites called newspapers online (Perhaps, not for long. This is sad only for those of us over 20).
Web as telephone
- We call up a webpage.
- We communicate one-to-one using various technologies.
- Voice over IP (VOIP).
- Directory services.
- 21st century twist: Telephone as web.
Web as TV
- WebTV.
- Broadcast.
- Video.
- Multimedia.
- Channels.
- Surfing the web (A hand-me-down metaphor from TV’s “channel surfing”).
Web as ecosystem
- Organisms interacting together within a habitat.
- Interdependence.
- Evolution.
Web as global village
- Social and political activity without geographical or geopolitical boundaries.
Web as software
Wait a second. Web as software? That’s not a metaphor. The web literally IS software.
Apparently no one under 20 needs a metaphor to understand the web. Hmmm.
Web as generation gap
