The End of the World Wide Web?

I now have a very organised and efficient way of working online, thanks to a few great companies coming together and integrating their services.

First of all, I use the magnificent Firefox to access the world at large. I had a go with Google Chrome, but found it hard to live without the vast array of Plug-ins Firefox provides. And the less said about Internet Explorer the better.

Firefox allows me to display my favourite bookmarks along a bar beneath my toolbar, for quick and easy access to my main websites. One such button is the "Share on Facebook" link, allowing me to share any page I find of interest instantly and easily. The whole toolbar is invaluable, although it's not a benefit exclusive to Firefox.


I am a slave to the Google Corporation. Google allows me to store and work on all my documents ONLINE, meaning I rarely have to use Open Office again. (Anyone who is still paying for Micro$oft Office needs their head seeing to...)

Google also provides Google Reader. This allows me to see all the latest news feeds from all of my favourite sites, in one place. They can be categorised, shared, stared for later, and notes added. Needless to say Google reader also displays rich content such as pictures and videos.

Next I installed the Del.icio.us Add-on. (Which I recently learnt is owned by Yahoo, sorry Google!) This is a great add-on that takes over my bookmarks menu, giving me a lot more power over my bookmarked sites. Now all my sites are stored online, shared with friends, and I get to see what they share. Also, using the buttons on Firefox make it much faster than using a Del.icio.us Bookmark Toolbar button. And one more sexy option, right clicking on any link allows me to instantly bookmark it. So easy...


A Twitter tool called TwitterFox pretty much turns Twitter into an Instant Messenger (albeit not a very private one), showing me the latest Twitted items and letting me post Twits without having to go to the Twitter page. And the Delicious add-on also lets me know when new items are shared in my network.


Finally, all of these awesome features are integrated into my iGoogle page.

What conclusion can be drawn from this integration of systems? Well they've got me thinking - why have web pages at all? We're now finding that what we want from the web is content, not fancy designed websites. The tools needed for dealing with this content can theoretically, all be integrated into our browsers, allowing us to never even visit a normal website the whole time we're online. Or websites containing applications such as iGoogle could retrieve and distribute all the data we need for our online activities.

Every interaction I now have with websites involves me either reading or inputting, for one reason or another. Text, images, or video being the main forms of data.

Google Chrome tried to strip away the tools of the browser, giving us direct access to websites. This will only be successful if all websites take the approach of having a generic layer of tools integrated into them. This may well be happening with the growth of AJAX powered web applications. But if it doesn't, then we're going to need those tools integrated into our browsers. Either way, these tools are going to shift the focus away from website presentation, and towards content delivery.

Could this mean the end of the WWW as we know it, or the Browser?

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