 | Randy Johnston
has been involved in computing for over 25 years. In addition to being a top-rated and entertaining speaker presenting technology seminars worldwide for K2 Enterprises (www.k2e.com), he is also Executive Vice-President and Co-owner of Network Management Group, Inc., a full-service computer networking and service company. Randy recently published Technology Best Practices for Wiley Publishing. You may contact Randy by e-mail at randyj@nmgi.com, or by phone at (620) 664-6000. |
Computers & Software
2002-07-01 11:41:00
Web sites of the future
Question: I read the other day there are nearly 5 million web sites. Lots of them do neat stuff when you open them. I would have to believe that one of the most interesting things we are all going to see in the future is the technology in what one sees when he or she first arrives at a web site. Am I wrong? What is on the horizon?
Answer: Web technology will continue to change even more rapidly than it has in the last five years. Why? Because more and more end-users will have high speed access to the Internet, and this higher speed access will allow richer media to be used by web developers.For example, picture what has happened in the video industry with the evolution from film to videotape to Digital Video Disks (DVDs). The quality of a recording on a DVD is much stronger than what we have available on tape, and there are more features such as the ability to look at a scene in a movie from several different positions. Another feature is the ability to play back the sound track in other languages. Usually there is enough capacity to have additional information about the movie, and to include outtakes and other special features. This is because the storage capacity is increased, the quality has increased, and the cost has decreased.High-speed media for web sites does the same thing. Your expectation should be that you will have good quality, full-screen video, digital audio, speech recognition and interactive elements that understand what functions you want. Web sites will also start to use the equivalent of Microsoft Smart Tag technology to give you direct access to related items, in context.Contextual information from web sites is not new technology, but has been around for at least five years. When a web browser drops a cookie on your local computer, it is actually storing your preferences on how to use that web site. Some vendors, Lands End for example, use the cookies to better understand your shopping habits to serve you better. For example, if you purchased a navy sweater last time you were shopping on the site, the current sale on dress shirts or blouses that match navy sweaters may be presented to you as a convenience. Yes, you could think of this as a sales tactic, but there is high probability that you will want this type of product or service. The same types of things are being done on travel web sites to make it easier to coordinate airline, hotel and car reservations.Additionally, the web site delivery will be more flexible at delivering data to you in the format that you want it. Numbers, schedules, pictures, and other content will be able to be transferred to other applications without rekeying, as we discussed in an earlier article on XML (Extensible Markup Language).We also believe that many of the web sites will deliver content to the devices that you would like to use. For example, I currently use a SamSung I300 Palm/cell phone. Since I travel frequently, I have loaded the Palm application from Delta, United, Continental, and American Airlines to deliver their most up to date airline schedules via the web into my combination Palm/cell phone. Then, if I need to make a trip, I can actually use the Palm/Web data to schedule my flights directly onto my calendar. In fact, I did that exact process this very morning. Web sites will become more sensitive to the devices that we want to use whether it is a PDA, cell phone, or a new generation tablet computer.
