A couple of years ago, Wired editor Chris Anderson wrote a cover article entitled “The Web is Dead: Long Live the Internet”. His argument at the time was that we were seeing a shift from Web development to App development, and that as such the Internet was becoming more a transport mechanism than a place to go. I remember being somewhat sceptical at the time…
Listening to commercial radio at the weekend reminded me of that article, and how there was probably a lot more in it than I thought at the time (for disclosure – I haven’t actually re-read it yet, so my memories of it might be clouded…).
Why the reminder? Well, you don’t hear URLs very often on radio adverts any more. The vocally challenging “double-yew, double-yew, double-yew” is rarely heard these days. What do you get? Well:
– no reference to the Internet at all (generally I guess assuming that people know how to find things these days, as there aren’t many brands who don’t have an Internet presence of some sort these days)
– references to “search for” the brand. Reassuring, given my current employer, that that seems to be search-platform neutral as a rule
– searching for, or “liking” the brand on Facebook. That’s why Mark’s IPO is such hot news…
– downloading the App “for your smartphone”
Don’t get me wrong, you do occasionally get the odd reference to the Web directly – but it’s not that common from my random listening at the weekend. That’s why Chris Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief at Wired and I’m not, I guess…
mmitII 