The web is alive, response to article by Jeff Stibel in Wired magazine (September 2013 issue)

Jeff Stibel, an entrepreneur and author of Breakpoint: Why the Web will Implode, Search will be Obsolete, and Everything Else you Need to Know about Technology is in Your Brain stirred a hornet’s nest with his provocative take on the future of the Web. His article, titled "The web is dead - and the app (thankfully) killed it" appeared in the Wired magazine (September 2013 issue) and predicts that the Web is going to be replaced by the app. He uses two, unrelated statistics as the basis for this argument. Firstly, the average time spent on the web in the USA has declined from 72 minutes in 2011 to 70 minutes in 2012. Secondly, data from comScore and Alexa shows that the average time an iPhone user in the USA uses apps on an iPhone has gone up from 94 minutes in 2011 to 127 minutes in 2012. The number for Android users is similar. He further mentions mobility as one of the reasons people are ‘using apps instead of the Web’, and information overload from the Web.

There are arguments that can be advanced to explain the decline in time spent on the Web. I will highlight a few that actually point towards increased Web value. Firstly, information is being packaged in a more contextual manner on the Web. This makes it easier to find the information that you want in a manner that largely meets your requirements. This therefore shortens search times, but without compromising the quality of information on the Web. The ability to provide information that a searcher wants and in the way that they want is being driven by technologies such as the Semantic Web. Secondly, due to improved bandwidth speed and improved mark-up language it now faster to access and download webpages and other files on the Web. In short, the Web has become more efficient and users are thus able to get more with less time.

Thirdly, the Web is able to draw information from as wide and diverse a range of sources as possible. Apps on the other hand tend to be islands of information that is not linked to other information and data out there. While the quality of information you can get from an app can be of a better quality than a website, the ability to source information from multiple websites gives the collective an edge over the App. Personally, I have never viewed apps as having the ability replace the Web. Apps serve a different purpose, one that is narrower than the Web. Because of this narrower focus, they will be of more value on specific things but not to an extent that renders the Web obsolete.

Where I agree with the article is on the use of mobile devices, where apps are more suited than the Web. Apps are much easier to operate on mobile devices, and once users get past the security and privacy concerns, they are more likely to rely on that particular app than the Web. Mobile websites are being designed in a way that offers the information on the Web at the ease of accessing it through an app. People will still need information over and above what they can access on apps, and it is for this reason that one should look at three options, the Web, the mobile Web and apps.