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What is Wrong with the World Wide Web?
(Or, how owning your own website, and even photo gallery website software can help)
This is probably the single most important article I will ever write in my lifetime! That says a lot, doesn't it? Well its true. What I am about to reveal to you will hopefully change everything you ever felt about the World Wide Web (ie "the Web") and the Internet as a whole. You may think that is unlikely, given the huge success and influence the Web has over all of our lives now. But let me make my case to you.
I have been involved with the Web and creating web sites in general the past 10 years. Many of you may have a history that goes back to the beginning of the Web, when in the early 1990's it was nothing but a bulletin board service and before that a science project created by CERN. My IT history is not much different. I started in 1998 building websites and doing Flash and multimedia, when the real Web was starting to mature. Having built so many web sites for so many customers since 1998, and seen a certain level of success in my field, I have a small amount of perspective on Web Development, technology, and the business of technology. Those past 10 years have not been squandered or passive ones either. Other than a rare vacation here and there, I have probably spent the last ten years working 8-12 hours a day on web-related technologies, databases, vendor applications, troubleshooting servers, team leading, working with experts, and neophytes alike, on a broad range of web technologies and network systems. In that time Ive also started my own business, selling Photo Website Software and other multimedia website and content management systems. As you already know there are thousands of sites and developers who have built and are selling software like this, and there is a growing industry now around website software. Having worked so hard for "the man", at some point most innovative programmers get the itch to go out and sell their wares, and I was no different. The point I am making, is I now have both perspectives....working as a senior software engineer for companies and consulting, but also running a real IT business and understanding the corporate side of that equation.
I will say Ive been in a lot of corporate boardrooms and met a lot of business and technology people. When you work around a lot of very smart people, you learn a lot and your own skills and talents are enriched. You also see how very smart people are blinded, often times, by their inability to either see the bigger picture, the business-side of things, interpersonal relationships, or what are ultimately, just plain bad technology decisions. I've worked with some kids right out of college or from other countries who have extraordinary talent and skill and bring value. I have worked with very innovative, experienced, and brilliant engineering minds in the United States, who create magic with everything they touch. But I've also see really smart people and managers who's projects fail despite what seemed likely really good intentions. These often occurred because of poor decision making, not experience or skill. Those decisions have caused a lot of people to burn out, overwork, and worst, unhappy customers. One of the things Ive seen from my own work is a pretty darn good track record of very happy customers, even despite what the company demanded of me. This resulted in allot of useful technologies for the people I worked with that run well even to this day. That was always a priority for me as a programmer and engineer, even though it may not have been the priority for the boss or the company. My point in all this is to lay the ground work for my main discussion...what is wrong with the World Wide Web and what is so flawed with it. My premise is that its flawed because of so many bad managers and business decision makers in technology that are not thinking about what is really important....the customer (ie the "User"). And its that framework that has built the flawed Web we have today.
The Web is flawed folks. It is severely flawed. You may think I am crazy and wondering what is really wrong with the Web? I will explain. The Web is a miracle and an amazing medium for information exchange. I will not get into a semantic discussion or debate about what exactly the Web is and what it gives everyone around the world. I am going to say, it is here to stay as a powerful, domineering, saturating, and democratic medium, despite the best attempts at controlling and influencing it by many outside groups (ie China). I will say that's not 100% true, though. Lately, there have been sopme vendors, or rather business interests and groups, that now have taken some control of the Web and manipulated our ability to use information from it. Its not their fault though....these groups have business interest in making money and guiding the Web down the path it's at now. The problem is those interestd are now at odds with what Users like you and I need. More on that later. Thank goodness, so many other groups and people have also guided the Web down better paths (ie the W3C.org). Its these groups that keep the Web a free and functioning medium for everyone to participate in. But what is wrong, then, with the Web?
The World Wide Web is flawed because it simply does not help users, like you and I, take control of their personal data. What do I mean by that? Well, it's a bit complicated so here goes:
Everyone that uses the Web has access to data, including their own data in the form of text, images, video and files. Everyone that uses the Web has the freedom to add more data to the Web and exchange it and use it as they like. Nothing wrong there, right? But where in the World Wide Web and in search and inside of all these Web 2.0 sites and domains is there a way for users, like you and I, to collect and control all our photos, videos we have uploaded, see all the blogs and ideas we have written, see every email and link we have sent or clicked, see the private sites we have visited over the years, see every word and idea we have typed, remove the credit card numbers you have entered into hundreds of databases, see all the places your personal address and phone number is stored, or even see any way or form you can make money or see value in all the data you have added to the Web? You may say, so what. I ask you, do you know where any of these files, numbers, addresses, text are stored?
Maybe you do not care that your data and photos and videos are scattered all over the World. It adds value to the Web and allows you to connect and share with people all over the World, right? That is a plus and helps you, right? Well, that is correct. That it does. But why are you not making money off your data, your photos, getting income from the hundreds of hours you worked editing those videos you uploaded, or the thousands of blogs where you shared valuable information with a community, or all the JavaScript code you uploaded for FREE to help some developer community. Did you make a darn dime off of anything you have uploaded to the Web? The answer is probably NO! Even IF you do not care, you have other issues with lost data. What about all of the 100 logins you now maintain just to access all your credit cards, ecommerce sites, blogs, photo sharing communities, email accounts, mobile access accounts, employer systems, etc.? You still are spending your life contributing to a medium that gives you nothing in return for all that hard work, nor giving you any control whatsoever over vulnerable data like credit cards, credit rating data, money, bank access, and private family information. With no way of centrally managing your media and data online, even without an interest at all in recovering the hours you spend giving free data to other sites online, its a VERY BAD DESIGN, this web of ours. Its not designed for YOU THE USER. It's designed for BIG BUSINESS and SEARCH ENGINES that are making TONS of money from YOUR CONTENT! It is not a User friendly Web at all. It is a Business based Web now, and turning more so every day. In that sense it is flawed for you, the user and Web visitor. It is flawed bigtime, folks!
The central premise here is simple. You use the Web, upload photos and video, type in blogs, spending thousands of hours online in many cases, while third party domains, websites and search engines use your content to sell advertising and eyeballs. THEY make money off of YOU USER DATA, period! Its not complicated. Again, you may say, so what, thats the nature of the Web and business online. I say wrong! It does NOT have top be that way. If the Web continues down this path, User data will degrade more and more. Users will have less access to organzing a lifetime of valuable information about themselves online simply because Web 2.0 dictates that its all about sharing your data. Well, sharing is good...storing that data on someelses database and server is bad. In the end, you will have a fraction of your original data with you on your PC or on disk as you get older, while the big online players post yur data and make millions from it. Seems like not so great a Web now, does it?
Who is at fault here? Well, you and I are at fault for buying into the Web 2.0 concept, which fuels this unbridled exchange of personal data online without secure systems in place to organize, centralize, standardize and contain that data for the user. In Web 2.0 photo sites for example, there is blatant exchange of copyrighted materials and images online 24/7. You may not care that your friend's image is on someone else's PC after downloading and viewing it after you uploaded it to some third party site. Maybe her their ends up in a advertisement or some other website for some odd reason. So what, you say? Well, your friend might care, but what can they do about it? If we had a user-based Web that helped people manage their data, it would be possible.
Well, it gets worse when you realize that not only did that photo gallery website mentioned above sell you a subscription to use and store photos on theri site, but you also were shown and sold advertising while there, as were your family members who viewed your photos online. Why are you sharing personal images so these sites benefit from them? Worse, what happens in 10 years when a company buys this comapny and thousands of your images are shifted around on servers, risk being lost, or worse, they go out of business? This is just part of the blame. The biggest blame is with search engines. Granted, they provide a valuable free service for accessing information. But no where do these services respect, service, or help users manage or collect or privatize their data online? Do a search for your own name....what do you find? Who knows, right? Your user data but also thousands of lines of content and valuable information you have typed over the years is still online, many cases, with your name behind it. If a third party site isnt making money off it, the search engines sure are. By selling advertising words and text ads in the engines, they just made some money off your data. The people to blame for the flawed Web we have is simply business. They have created systems and designs for a Web that benefits them....not you the User.
My biggest gribe is not the money made from my data and that of my family over time, but the fact I cannot get to all the data that should be mine! I mean, how many of us would love to have a central website where every photo, video and audio I've ever created or uploaded is stored for me to see, distribute, and sell? What about all my personal data about myself, or my credit card data, or credit reports? Why do so many third party sites sell me information that's mine anyway??? It makes no sense. All I want is a way to centralize my photo libraries, my video and ideas online so I have control of them...the things that 10, 20, 30 years from now I still want to access online and see and hand down to my kids, regardless of Web 2.0 community sites or search results. These online businesses will likely be gone or changed in 30 years but YOUR DATA IS ETERNAL, and valuable to YOU! Do you agree? Do you now see the flaw in our Web? Your data is a part of who you are, beyond this shallow search and community-controlled Web we have inherited. Why does the Web not help Users control their data? That is the question every human being on this planet of ours should be asking (and will over time). If it doesn't improve, I see a data crisis coming online. The hodge-podge or information will get more disorganized and out of these ashes someone new open standard and system will arise that finally strips out and associates data with its real owners. At that time, the advertising medium-driven search Web will be history. The main hope is, users will rise up and see the problems associated with managing large volumes of their data via third party sites and products and search. It is inevitable, that this change must come. But for now, we all suffer. You agree?
Do you see now the clear flaws in the Web? Do you see what is wrong with the World Wide Web now? I am not saying its bad in every way. I am not saying there are not huge benefits to this architecture we now have. I am saying that it is time for people to be informaed of this flaw and take action. One way to do this is to STOP STORING PHOTOS AND VIDEOS on other web sites period! The other is to use Paypal or a single credit card you carry over your lifetime that is used for online transactions. Another is to boycott Web 2.o web sites and photo sharing sites that use communities. They are addictive and before you know it, you will have hundreds of your valuable images and user data stored there. If you decide to store that adat somewhere else, you are trapped by these vendor sites, in most cases.
Perhaps the biggest single thing you can do, and which is the main solution to this problem, is simple. Go buy your own Website and Domain online? It doesnt matter where you host the site, or even if you know what a website is or how to create one? The main thing is to go to an independent hosting service, like GoDaddy.com (for example) and buy a small doamin for a few years and buy cheap hosting on one of their servers. They will help you set that up. What do you gain by this? You gain FREEDOM! Now, buy owning your own online presence, domain, address and location, you can now store all your photos, videos and files online and over time, share them from YOUR location, not some other company site. By doing this, you wont benefit from the sexy designs and systems these other sites have to help you manage that content. But you now have the chance to both keep your files for the REST OF YOUR LIFE, as long as you renew your domain and site. If it moves, you can easilyn download all your photos and files and upload them, to another site. But your domain you can renew every 10 years and keep it the rest of your life. As you get older, your library grows on your website and is there for your kids and family. They too can upload files to your server, if they like. You also gain a huge number of other benefits....for starters, third party sites and even search engines no longer make money from you or YOUR DATA! Thats great! Second, you have control now, 100%, over WHO sees your data and files from your website. Best of all, as you start to learn how to create a real website or use tools to help you manage your website content, you can actually sell advertising to those who view your photos, videos and files. FINALLY, YOU CAN MAKE MONEY OFF YOUR DATA USING YOUR OWN WEBSITE. Thats most important of all. You are now benefiting from hosting your own files. It gets even better....by hosting your media and content and blogs yourself, you can also benefit from search yourself. Now that you have your own website, suddenly the search engines will index your files and give you results, and allow people to find YOU online. You can control what they find as well. If you want a private site, a simple piece of code called a "robots.txt" allwos you to tell the search engines, not to "find" you online. Its that simple! You are now in control, making money off your content, and best of all have a long term strategy to contain and maintain the wealth of data about you over your lifetime. You do all that by buying and owning your own website and domain. I encourage EVERYONE to do that! Its the only way to change the course of the Web.
One of the things I will be writing about and proposing moving forward is a drive to have all countries and goverments assign a permanent IP and/or domain for every person on teh planet, so that they can use that as the basis for creating a portal to safeguard their content. Thats for a future article....write me at mitchstokely@gmail.com if you would like to work with me on that initiative.
Now for some shameless promotion. I did NOT write this article to try and sell you something. But I did create my company, GiantIsland.com, based on my strong feelings about the direction of the Web. At first, I started using simple ASP code to build small content management scripts to help people manage photos. That product, which is still free to the world (ImageIsle) has formed the basis for all my other software and supports my philosophy of building Website tools for website owners that allow them to manage their photo galleries and video online from their own websites, thereby gaining great value in controlling and distributing their User Data online. All my products at Giantisland.com are designed to give you a very affordable means to manage, say Photos and Photo Galleries using your existing website and domain. I also sell products for Video and Audio as well. I hope, if you consider building your own website, you will consider my products as an option to helping you do just that online.
Together we can all build a better Web by taking hold of the wheel, away from the big vendors, and steering the ship out to better seas. That starts by refusing to store another file in another web site online and doing it yourself in your own website and domain. Best of Luck to You All! - Stormy
