wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

the web is not dead, but as of this week digg.com is dead.

check it out, super popular site has given itself a meltdown by betraying its users

What I've taken from this discussion is that the "Promise" of the web is dead. Not the web itself which really is a semantic debate. The web was supposed to provide something open and fair and something more than an endless shopping mall. It's just another place to consume. As such big money rules.

I was dismayed recently to click on a Tweet from Wired recently to find that I was hijacked and *forced* to sit through an unexpected ad before being allowed to click-through and see the promised content. Your guest is by no means a disinterested party. his comments and ideas need to be questioned much harder than I think you did. That goes for all of WNYC's new "partners", such as the New York Times and syndicated shows like The Takeaway. As a matter of fact it would be interesting to put all of WNYC/PBS staff on the hot seat and ask why WNYC/PBS is gravitating towards syndicated capitalist media. Why doesn't WNYC start to build an open-source peer-to-peer social-networked media gathering/dissemination network? You've get the materials to do that – why are you going in the direction that you are? Do you notice that you are a player in this act?

Everything is going to be streamed in the future, thereby doing away with cable box subscriptions. Hulu is a small example of that. Shows will be offered online. Tivo is already a thing of the past. That is what he means by Netflix becoming HBO.

There's an app for that -- if I own the product and pay the tariff, I don't own the product (smartphone) and don't pay the tariff ($60 - $90/month) to use the smartphone/iPad, etc. I do use the internet, I do pay that tariff, but I can't/won't pay that extra money. I guess the "dead" internet will have to continue working for me. By the way, I am not a Facebook member either, because I don't want to share my life details with strangers. Not a Luddite, but not fully able to participate in Mr. Wolff's world view.

I wonder if he deliberately planted that seed about Netflix because he 'knows' that they are looking to program. This is how they do it, seeding planting, and now we're all online and talking about it so someone else will inevitably read it, and post it, or blog it, etc etc. It's like blowing on an old dandy lion and letting it flutter everywhere and germinate.

The Web is dead? And "dead tree" publishing isn't? Wired is a magazine still printed on paper?
I think what the guest is missing is that the explosion in bandwidth has presented additional options in the types and quantities of data available to end users. The Web is a graphical front-end that largely superceded the text interfaces that Tony from Santa Clara noted here. If a proprietary interface could take over, why did AOL's interface lose out? The big changes will be in (1) mobile computing, where closed platforms, small screens, and enhanced functionality (such as GPS) will encourage the use of new ways to access the Internet, and (2) home entertainment, where delivery of entertainment over a digital network (not necessarily the Internet) has become a reality.

"Pornography does not make money online"...um...is this guy nuts? he lost all credibility with that statement

Yeah, I have to disagree with this guy on HBO. They do offer some terrific programs that they alone produce so how would Netflix compete with that!

As a long time and avid user of both the "internet" and the "web" as these writers seem to think of them, I must say I don't think they have any idea what they're talking about. This seems to me like a lot of convoluted semantic arguments used to write an article with a bunch of fantastic claims meant to generate media attention. There's nothing to see here.

These guys should be embarrassed. That measurement of "internet traffic" is COMPLETELY misleading! ...and these guys know it!

Bandwidth is NOT a measure of use!
That graph they created does not have anything to do with their argument. The graph shows how an increasing amount of bandwidth is going to video. It does now show that the amount of web vs. total internet usage is decreasing.

It may be decreasing, but these guys certainly have not made a case for it. As others have posted, there has been FTP, Email, AOL, IRC, Usenet, etc. since the beginning. I would guess that 'apps' are probably just barely keeping up with filling the space that those others are leaving as we find web and app interfaces too perform those tasks.

but people are still finding the video over the

He's right about Google, I hate that everything I do somehow or other goes thru Google and I'm fed up with it. I'm tired of the fact that Google selects and decides which sites to offer me when I do a search. It's getting to the point where it's more and more commercial whereby up searching the same commercial entities appear first in the line-up and they are not always the best options.
Did that make sense?

ha! "the NYtimes knows nothing about this topic" SO TRUE. i mean, her comment doesn't even make sense. a bunch of marketing crap.

the worldwide web is an internet *protocol*, just like ftp file transfer is an internet protocol, and smtp (outgoing) and pop3 (incoming) for email... and some others no longer in use (like gopher..)

Back in the early 1990's, the web (http) wasn't the main thing. Many people used gopher, usenet, and ftp.

Maybe we are just going backward.

is this based on a book?

Along with God and Rock & Roll?

side note:
haven't we had enough "is such and such dead?" headlines this year?
Are magazine people brian dead to be coming up with these headliners over and over - The End of Men - The End of Google - Is the Web Dead?

should i stop posting?