We've had Web 2.0, the Social Web, and the cutesy/gag-worthy intertubes/interwebs for far too long now. What's next? I'd like to hypothesise. Or perhaps I'm just dreaming. But I propose that we, the people who make the Web as well as consuming it, should now set our sights on creating The Friendly Web.
What is The Friendly Web?
It's a place where things work. Where life is easy, even if you've forgotten one of those sixteen-characters-no-spaces-at-least-one-number-and-one-letter-no-caps-ah-crap-it's-considered-"weak"-anyway passwords you need to log into any of the zillion services and sites you use every day.
It's a place where marketinglingo and corporatespeak are never uttered. Where people are treated as they would like to be treated. Where sales pages aren't fifteen angry punches of the Page Down key long, with crucial sentences highlighted in flashing red text. Where sales pages, my friend, do not exist, because people know what they want when they want it, and don't need to have it "sold" to them.
The Friendly Web is an intuitive place where you can get what you want, when you want it, without hassle. It's a place where news services go further than Mashable and Twitter for article topics, and further than first-year university students for copy editors.
On The Friendly Web, no one tries to coerce you to do something you don't want to do. There are no embarrassing popup-lightbox-skip-ad faux pas. In fact, there are no embarrassing faux pas (generic 404 pages, stupid contextual ad targeting, clunky language, etc.) full stop. It's a place where eTax is available for Mac, syncing is seamless, and your username is your freaking name, for Christ's sakes.
Can we do it? Consider if you will the sequential waves of uprising now taking place in North Africa. Here are people who are tired of the tyranny, and want to be heard, to be free. If ordinary people, without rifles, budgets for mercenaries, bombs, or their own secret service can topple tyrannical dictator after tyrannical dictator, then web geeks can certainly push us from the Social Web to The Friendly Web.
Don't you think?
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