Having done web development during in the 90s while also growing up as a kid, I was mesmerized by the amount of progress technology was making. When I was in 7th grade (1998) I was writing websites and reading PC Mags, drooling over 500 Mhz PCs and 17″ monitors. My dad being a techie himself, he was always trying to buy the latest gadget which in turned allowed me to have some great tools to play with.
The company he worked for, Ricoh, made an effort to get into the CD-R business long before burners were even possible. I remember my brother showing me the existence of the “.mp3” audio file and how we could scour the web and download songs, and write them to an actual CD! This was long before scour.net or napster. We were always “those kids” copying Playstation games, Dreamcast games, etc… It was a fun era, and I’ll always remember it.
Heading into high school I remember seeing my first ever Macromedia Flash animation in school, and I was blown away. At the time you’d have these stale 1999-ish websites, and here I saw content displayed in an amazing fashion. This led me to awesome sites as a kid, 2advanced.com as well as billybussey.com. These flash sites I thought were the future!
Forward 15 years, and we have a completely different future. Less plugins, no flash, responsive sites, the web today is amazing and wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for yesterday.
So what about the future?
I believe we are going to have a creative, idea focused future. Before in the past people would always rely on a developer because they were the ones who could technically execute an idea. With more and more people understanding technology, all you need is a great idea, and the executors will follow. Focus on the idea.
So what would be the next idea?
We had the .com boom, the social boom, mobile, etc… what could be more?
I highly believe in Steve Jobs statement before he passed away:
“I think the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning.”
I can imagine a world where your heart-rate can be looked up online, your eye prescription can be viewed on a responsive mobile website. The blending of physical hardware and software, all being packed up in a beautiful display.
Maybe people wouldn’t smoke so much if they can get real-time alerts that their lungs are being abused with every puff of a cigarette?
Now this doesn’t have so much focus on the web, but moreso the general future, but it’s gonna make the future of web very interesting!