Understanding the Internet
What is the internet? Why do we use it? How do we use it? How do we navigate and switch from content to content? This is JJ thinking out loud while he writes this in no specific order and without proofreading…
The Internet is content you can access using a device.
Content is a mix of text, photos, videos and audio. Content have unlimited ways to be presented to the people visiting it. User Interface design. User Experience design. Animations. Sizes. Placements. Typography. Colors. Sound effects. Speed. Length. Responsive. Buttons. Fields and forms. Sending. Receiving. Consuming. Posting. Sharing. Liking. Surfing. Googling. Typing. Buying. Playing. Following. Requesting.
Yes, there are many keywords that let’s us dive deeper to what the Internet is and can. But at the very end it’s just content made accessable. It’s content.
The internet is like a box of blank papers. Blank until you load (down- or upload) content. Once loaded, the paper, also known as a page, will no longer be blank. For every page you enter, new content are being shaped on the paper. In time you get the need to sort and order all the papers you have. Imagine billions of people using the same box of blank papers to load content. Imagine all of the trillions and trillions of papers that have been loaded in time. How are they organised? We can only imagine, but it is not pretty.
Well, we can make it pretty. It is not too late. We humans have existed for more than 100,000 years. The Internet first became accessable to the mass less than 30 years ago. Still, only less than 1/3 of the world uses the Internet.
The internet is content. Static or live. It is content.
The internet started out being text only. Still, text content is the leading type of content of the Internet. As the internet evolved, became more advanced and faster, photos became more evenly distributed and normal to use. Texts are depended on the language you speak and understand. Photos are not. A perfect example is Mr. Bean. He does not speak a specific language that narrows the audience, but he uses an imaginative and universal body language and expression. Photos are universal and does not rely on a specific language. This is one of the reasons why Instagram entered the market with the perfect timing and surpassed the text-oriented Twitter.
The next and natural type of mass content will be videos. This is simply because technology around the internet is improving, becoming more advanced and faster. Combined with the tools to create better videos. The rise of YouTube, Vine, Periscope, Live-broadcasting features, Netflix, more videos on your Facebook feed and so on.
But still. It is content. Text. Photos. Videos.
The fourth might be virtual reality, but currently it is too hyped compared to the quality and level 2D television delivers. There might be less than 100 of very talented developers to create virtual reality content and even less very talented designers. In order to become a mass- and evenly distributed content, people, billions, would need to own a virtual reality hardware and thousands and thousands of people should be able to develop and design to it. This will not happen over the next 10 to 20 years. The makers needs to be born and raised around it first.
It’s like 3D-printers. Everyone loves the innovation, but no ones owns one. Or when tablets were innovated in the 80’s, but first became near-mainstream 20 years later.
The internet is about mass- and evenly distributed content. Text. Photos. Videos. And of course audio.
The people of the Internet consume more content than they create content.
Why is that? Is it because content being created is so good that we consume it? Or is it simply because it is too difficult and complicated to create content?
Well, it depends on what content you want to create. Is it a website or an app? Or a simple Post using a photo supported by text?
You see, why are we even depended on URL-links for content? There might be some technical reasons, I get it. You get it. But why are the end-users depended on typing an URL-address?
To make my long thoughts short, it is because we simply have accepted how it is. How the internet is being spontaneously formed with time. We consider URL-links as our home address of the internet.
That is wrong.
You are the home address.
That is right.
URL-links are one of the main reasons why the internet have become such a big mess.
Why is that? Because everything that happens before making an URL-link relevant and active is a huge and complicated mess.
Search & select a stupid and weird domain name. Setup an account and buy it for an overprice using a payment system. Setup a hosting, but before that, google what hosting is. Setup another internet account and buy into a hosting using another payment system. Get stucked. Suddenly discover you need to download FileZilla. Google how FileZilla works. Never get to understand it, but try anyways. Setup another account for Wordpress. Google how wordpress works. Never get to learn it fully. Google “wordpress templates”. Setup another account in order to buy the template you will like for the next few months using yet another payment system. Google what to do in order to have it in your website. Be disappointed in that it doesn’t look like the demo. End up with a shitty website that in 9 weeks will be attacked and go down.
I could continue.
The internet is slowly breaking.
Why?
Because we have accepted that it’s just how the internet works.
Wrong.
The internet is not about asking millions of people requiring to setup an enviroment to upload their content. People just need an environment to load their content. It is that simple.
The internet is about you. It’s should be an extension of you.
How do we then fix, democratise, architect and balance the internet? How do we make the internet to be an empowering thing to create, explore and discover content with an obvious way to navigate?
We start a project and call it Balloon and we design and build it to be about everything, from the very beginning. There is an opening and we will enter it.
