Around the Net
Winer: Apps Ain't The Future!
- Scripting News, Wednesday, December 14, 2011 12:31 PM
Though he’s not the first to say so, respected blogger Dave Winer insists that apps are not the future of digital information and services. His one-word reason? “Linking,” Winer writes on his Scripting News blog. “Visualize each of the apps they want you to use on your iPad or iPhone as a silo. A tall vertical building. It might feel very large on the inside, but nothing goes in or out that isn't well-controlled by the people who created the app. That sucks!”
Winder continues: “The great thing about the Web is linking. I don't care how ugly it looks and how pretty your app is, if I can't link in and out of your world, it's not even close to a replacement for the Web.” As Winer admits, however, his comments come amid a huge boom in app development and consumer adoption, and, as a result, a few obituaries for the Web.
Wired was one of the first publications to call the Web dead in March 1997, and then it did it again in August 2010. “I was so impressed I added it to my blogroll, as a reminder to all that you're reading a dead medium,” Winer notes. “That was said in jest, of course.”
