Of the web

Posted: January 19th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: CBC | Tags: , | 2 Comments »

The other day, my Dad suggested that I might like the Stack Overflow podcast, so I subscribed.

At around 46 minutes into episode 79, Joel Spolsky mentions brochureware-style web design:

You know the kind of site I’m talking about? It’s just like you can imagine it printed on glossy paper and being given to you by hand. And it just doesn’t look like a web page.

But it’s the next line that’s the kicker:

It’s on the web. But it’s not of the web.

And right there, Joel put his finger on exactly what bugs me about so much of what CBC does online, particularly with radio show websites. Yes, it’s on the web. But it’s not of the web.

2 Comments on “Of the web”

  1. 1Joe Clark said at 7:53 pm on January 19th, 2010:

    Also “Web-native.”

    You can take this too far, of course, and most people do. Like putting a comment field on everything, an actively harmful decision for many uses (including hard-news stories). “Web-native” but destructive.

  2. 2Paul Rissen said at 2:38 am on January 20th, 2010:

    I completely agree – the vast majority of websites tend to treat the web as a distribution channel, rather than as a medium in its' own right. Look at the BBC's iPlayer – it is a way of distributing TV and radio content over the Internet – not creating web versions of those shows. If we want the web to become a medium, we need to create things 'of' the web.

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