How did we get here? Web3

In the beginning, as they say, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web.

But In 1989 the Web was, at best, an “alpha” version and didn’t enter it’s “beta” phase until 1992 when Marc Andreeson began work on the Mosaic browser, which quickly became popular on college campuses around the world.

I mark the beginning of “Web 1.0” as 1994, the year HTML was standardized and the Web started to become more than a plaything of the academic world.

The Web grew quickly as it’s obvious power in dissemination information was quickly realized.

What would become known as Web 2.0 grew partially from the further standardization of technologies, not only HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but also from the emergence of Internet Explorer as dominant in the browser wars.

What also allowed Web 2.0 to flourish, quite frankly, was

the the Dot-com Bubble bursting, an extinction level event in the industry that cleared the way for innovative new products that little or no Tech-debt hindering them.

So when did Web 3 start?

I could argue that, despite the terms current popularity of the buzzword, the third age of the web, actually started in 2009 with the launch of the growing importance of mobile devices and the death of Flash.

This changed how we would not only consume Web content, but also how we would have to design it with our products having to be responsive to the size of the screen and without the crutch of plug-ins for functionality.

This was further helped by improving backend technologies, frameworks that sped-up development, and new design products that allowed designers to draw interfaces more accurately, if not dynamically.

Call it Web 3.0 or Web 2.5, but you can’t doubt the sea-Change in the web brought on by new technologies.

And here we are now.

Whatever you call it, it is obvious we are on the cusp of a new Web epoch. As with the other epochs of the Web, blockchain promises to “subvert the paradigm” (yeah, I’m going there) of the current Web, trying to bring it back to its original decentralized nature.

I applaud and support that effort, because we are stuck in an cybernetic rut, and I do not believe for a moment that we have reached the pinnacle of human centered digital design yet.

But is blockchain the future of Web design?

Can we create better, more user centric interfaces that are not just accessible, but inclusive, and— dare we dream it—Universal that adapt to users rather than forcing user to adapt to them.

I’m agnostic on this point, and not convinced that Blockchain is the solution we need, but willing to keep an open mind.