Evolve or die, pick one of the two options. And if we delve deeper, we can see three core elements that dictate this natural selection and evolution. Certain web browsers tend to be more evolved than others!
We can see the fossils of our past exist in computers that still have IE6 and Lynx, poking around our websites on occasion (much to our dismay). Devices come in all shapes and sizes, from cell phones to browsers.
Moving away from the lackluster ideals of just having text and images, the HTML specification grew to include all sorts of wonderful opportunities to begin laying out content. It started with table-based designs and simple multi-column web pages. Then we got CSS, which enabled us to style our content so that they looked nothing like the typical white background, black text, and blue underlined hyperlinks clich.
Often coded with little attention to detail, the amount of alert boxes asking for your name, popup windows, right-click-crippling events, JavaScript clocks, site counters, and other strange things appeared in the boatloads. Many did it for the novelty or marketing agenda, most never thought about the user. Anti-right-click scripts got thrown about in a futile attempt to curb digital piracy. Luckily, something changed in the ethos toward the web.
The evolution of web browsers and competition certainly represented that. In code, multiple competing languages were produced for specific uses (i.e., RSS versus Atom) and this healthy competition led to the aftershock of innovation from developers and an imaginative array of new uses for the web from those pushing the boundaries. Plenty of languages compete against each other, but this is healthy.
Bonzi Buddy was a classic example of people taking the web too far. But this scenario was almost like a purging of sorts. Out with the old, in with the new. In its place, an age of enlightenment began, with the catalyst simply being that more people were using the internet.
Accessibility. These were the words being thrown around. People thought computers and the web would collapse under the Y2K bug! The old, clumsier days of the web in which design decisions were based around which scrolling statusbar script to use or which dancing Homer Simpson GIF would make you feel better were gone, and a focus toward professional user-centered design, data-driven design decisions, accessibility and usability gained importance.
A content management system is a set of web-based tools that allow for the creation and modification of digital content. CMS-built websites allow users with no programming background to add and remove website pages, text, pictures and more. WordPress, one of the CMS platforms we use, is the most used CMS platform. It accounts for about 34% of all websites.
eCommerce sites exist to sell goods and services digitally. They incorporate a payment gateway like PayPal, Venmo and Stripe so customers can make a purchase directly on the website. According to an August 2019 survey by Walker Sands, 6 in 10 (61%) US consumers have made a purchase on an ecommerce site. And the need for eCommerce sites, from a business and consumer perspective, has increased dramatically in the last year as consumers avoid crowded stores and public areas.
With so many types of websites, the web design and development industry has also come a long way. As the World Wide Web became more intertwined with our daily lives, website technology became more advanced. Websites started existing for specific purposes based on different needs, and oftentimes the needs of one business were different from another.
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The World Wide Web is the key tool used by billions of people to distribute information, read and create it, and connect with others over the internet. The web has evolved considerably over time, and its contemporary uses are almost unrecognizable from its inception. The development of the web is often classified into three stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0.
Web 1.0 was the very first version of the internet. Consider the read-only or syntactic web to be Web 1.0. The majority of participants were content consumers, whereas the creators were mostly web developers who produced websites with predominantly textual or visual content. Web 1.0 existed approximately between 1991 and 2004.
In Web 1.0, sites supplied static content rather than dynamic hypertext mark-up language (HTML) content. The data and content came from a static file system rather than a database, and there was limited interactivity on the web pages.
Most of us have only seen the web in its present form, which is also known as Web 2.0, the interactive read-write web, and the social web. You don't have to be a developer to participate in the Web 2.0 creation process. Many applications are built in such a manner that anybody can create content.
You may think and share your ideas with the rest of the world. In Web 2.0, you may also submit a video and make it accessible for millions of people to view, engage with, and comment on. Web 2.0 apps include YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
Web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript frameworks like ReactJs, AngularJs, VueJs, and others enable businesses to create new concepts that allow users to contribute more to the social web. As a consequence, since Web 2.0 is designed around people, developers just need to provide a system to empower and engage users.
Consider how popular applications like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube were in their early days compared to how they are now. All of these businesses generally go through the following steps:
When a developer or organization develops a successful app, the user experience is often exceedingly smooth, particularly as the program's popularity rises. This is why they were able to get momentum so quickly in the first place. Many software companies were unconcerned about monetization at first. Instead, they were primarily concerned with acquiring and maintaining new customers, although they would ultimately start profiting.
However, the constraints of accepting venture capital often affect the life cycle and, ultimately, the user experience of many of the services we use today. When a company seeks venture money to build an application, for example, its investors often anticipate a return on investment in the tens or hundreds of times that they put in. This implies that, rather than following a long-term, organic development plan, the firm is typically driven down one of two paths: marketing or data sales.
More data implies more targeted marketing for several Web 2.0 businesses, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter. This leads to more clicks and, as a consequence, more ad revenue. The use and centralization of user data are critical to the operation of the web as we know and use it today. As a consequence, data breaches are fairly frequent in Web 2.0 apps. There are even websites devoted to monitoring data breaches like and notifying you when your personal information has been compromised.
In Web 2.0, you have no control over your data or how it is kept. In reality, corporations regularly monitor and keep user data without their knowledge or consent. All of this data is then owned and managed by the companies in charge of these platforms. Furthermore, when governments feel someone is expressing a viewpoint that opposes their propaganda, servers are routinely taken down or bank accounts are seized. Using centralized servers, governments may easily intervene, control, or shut down programmes.
Governments routinely meddle in banks since they are also computerized and centralized. They may, however, suspend bank accounts or limit access to money during times of extreme volatility, excessive inflation, or other political upheavals. Many of these issues will be addressed by Web 3.0, which seeks to fundamentally rethink how we build and interact with apps.
Web 3.0, also known as Semantic Web or read-write-execute, is the phase (starting in 2010) that suggests the future of the web. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) allow computers to evaluate data in the same manner that people do, allowing for the intelligent development and dissemination of useful information based on a user's individual requirements.
Although there are several major differences between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, decentralization is the defining parameter. Web 3.0 developers almost never design and deploy programmes that operate on a single server or store data in a single database (usually hosted on and managed by a single cloud provider).
Web 3.0 applications are based on blockchains, which are decentralized networks of many peer-to-peer nodes (servers), or a combination of the two. These applications are known as decentralized apps (DApps), and the term is often used in the Web 3.0 ecosystem. Participants in the network (developers) are rewarded for providing the best quality services in order to maintain a robust and secure decentralized network.
Many leading companies are presently conceptualizing and developing Web3, with Ethereum standing out in terms of early user acceptance and scope. While Web3's underlying architecture has not yet been determined, its decentralized nature is a key component of its planned design.
Web3 is envisioned as returning data ownership to end-users via decentralization. The ambition of Web3 is to construct new web protocols and infrastructure that should enable developers to build applications where users bring their own data and identity is no longer bound to any one platform.
A decentralized web is based on a peer-to-peer network that is built on a user community. Instead of a group of powerful servers, this group's own internet-connected nodes would host websites or apps. Each website or programme is dispersed among hundreds of nodes on various devices. This procedure decreases the likelihood of a server breakdown, hackers shutting down a website, or an oppressive government seizing and/or restricting viewpoints. The decentralized web is related to the dark web, which was designed by the US government to enable individuals and journalists under repressive regimes to express themselves freely, safeguard whistleblowers, and keep users safe by maintaining their identities. The anonymity and decentralized structure of the black web also allows criminals to operate freely, which is a possibility for Web3.
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