tdog blog.

Best of the web

An article idea just occurred to me (for those who may not know, I'm an editor, and very occasional author, for boxes and arrows -- an online design magazine), but then I remembered I'm too lazy to actually write it. But I'm still interested in the topic: What is the best, most significant stuff the web has brought us? What sites or services that use or are dependent on the web have had the most impact on our lives? (And not from a design perspective, really, more from a quality-of-life or convenience point of view. Also, I'm more interested in the web than the Internet -- we all know email and IM are awesome.)

I'm curious because it's really easy to criticize the web, and products in general, and there's not enough recognition of the good stuff out there.

Here are a few I came up with:

- Amazon: What real world store allows you to shop for, compare, read reviews of, sell, and buy almost any consumer product you could want?
- Online package tracking: And when my package from Amazon ships, I can use UPS and FedEx's package tracker tools feed my materialistic impatience and thirst for up-to-the-minute knowledge, without interacting with a single person or stupid automated phone system.
- Ebay: One of the few web sites that offer a service that is basically impossible to provide in the real world.
- Online banking and bill pay: Five years ago, I probably wrote ten checks a month, and relied on my ATM receipt or monthly bank statement to know how much money I had. Today, I have exactly one recurring monthly payment I handle with a check (and I could even pay that one online if I wanted), and I can see charges to my bank account within minutes of the transaction.

What can you folks think of?

It’s funny, because I think that the sites that have had the most impact on my life aren’t sites I’ve ever seen. I’m talking about intranet sites that the companies I associate with use to handle my business. From the company newsletter that keeps people up to date on how to handle my TPS reports, to the web UI to their database that they use while trying to figure out the status of my account, internal web sites (as mainframes before them) make the most difference in my life.

Are you serious? TPS reports are real? Man I thought those were just a joke from “Office Space”. What is a TPS report, anyway?

Anywhoo, I would have to say that reviews/previews in general are like one of the biggest assets that the web has offered up. I have now become a whore to reviews. Movies, video games, electronics, appliances, cars, restaurants, even people. Its not just amazon it is the whole reviewing ability.

To a lesser degree I would say the whole web album thing is increasingly huge. Let’s say I went to a peace rally in SF and I wanted to show my friends what the whole experience was like. I could post my images and kablam-o! It’s like they were there too.

Weblogs (or “Blogs”) are supposed to be pretty big, but I haven’t heard of any good ones. Its interesting to see the evolution from “my homepage” with pictures of my cat and animated webwidgets to “my blog” where people can comment on my cat and how empty my life must be. OR just follow the progression from webcounter to guestbook to journal to comments.

Or you could talk about the whole Job Search thing. From day one I had my portfolio up on the web and could tell potential employers to check it out. Now I could have any number of sites post my resume and try to match me with jobs. Though I’ve never had any sucess with this it must work for somebody.

Lastly, porn. Let’s face it if you want to have sex, see sex, or see sexiness then the web is the place to go. A lot of it is guilt free too. Privacy of your own home, and in most cases you don’t have to pay for anything. Home video was huge boost to the whole porn industry, now you have to imagine that the web is even bigger.

OK, one more and that is it. News. Nowadays I check the news at work as often as I check my email. I, personally can’t sit down and read the paper everyday, but I can read articles, comics, satire, whatever. I read the news on just tech stuff, which isn’t something that the largest newspaper can do, and I hear about it the same day.

So there is your article, just copy and paste this bad boy and you are done. Now just send me my money (and the money you already owe me) and we are done.

Should I be worried that news comes after porn in Josh’s list? :)

I am having an interesting experience at my new job that is sort of relevant. The company I now work for is one of the most backward companies I have encountered - wish I had known that before accepting the job! Maybe I got spoiled in SF - but it seems like with all the modern technology available, its silly not to make use of it. This company does everything on PAPER. Bills and job orders are written up BY HAND for each job that goes through here. (for anyone who does not know, I work for a printing company now). That means that for every client who wants something printed, a customer service person writes up a job request by hand, walks it out to the printing presses and gives it to the foreman. When the job is in-progress, it is filed in a large open filing cabinet in the middle of the room, and everyone goes there to check on the status of each job. Now, this company is the major envelope printer for the Boston area, so they print millions of envelopes a week. Imagine how many jobs get done wrong because someone can’t read someone else’s handwriting? A surprising number! More ironically, there is a web site ordering system for major customers - they can just go to the website and order their envelopes or business cards that way. BUT, once they make that order, it goes back to being hand-written. They still circulate paper memos, and other than me and the art director, the whole company uses Netscape mail for their email.

Ok, enough about that. Sorry to digress from topic Ryan!

One thing that I have found incredibly useful with the web lately is wedding planning! Our wedding is going to be in Cleveland - but we are here in Boston. The web has been a big help in researching photographers, florists, reception locations, etc. I also find it a great way to learn about things that I would never know about otherwise. For instance, I am really interested in science and space travel - but its unlikely that I would pick up a science magazine to learn about those things. With the web, I can satisfy my curiousity on all sorts of things, without having to resort to reading a bunch of different magazines or books that I would inevitably either loose interest in or not understand.

Lastly, I think ecommerce is a good thing. Let’s all look at Heather’s new enterprise for instance - she started Site Solder and can run her new business from home with the help of the web and her network of contacts. The web is a great tool for small businesses to get their names out there and get recognition.

Another answer to your question about useful sites is metasites. I could go to the library and get more information than I ever wanted, but there’s no google. There are more magazines that I’ll ever have time to read, but there’s no blogdex. Metasites are often more helpful to me than individual sites.

I no longer program offline because google is just too helpful for finding people that have solved my problems for me and published the answers (or even the code) to the web.

Just being able to stay in touch with my brother in Russia is worth every penny this thing cost me. We used to go for literally months and months with no contact before he got on line.

Online maps and directions are very high up on my list. They completely changed how I get around. I can’t recall the last time I asked someone for directions somewhere, nor can I recall the last time someone volunteered directions: it seems it’s just assumed that you’ll use mapquest or whatever. (And with devices like the hiptop, I further assume that I’ll be able to get directions at any time (not always a good assumption).)

The same goes for yellow pages, weather sites, movie listings, etc — they’ve totally displaced the way I used to get that information. Turn on the TV to find out what the weather will be like? How quaint!

I really think the way in which ASCII art has changed my life is rather profound. This wonder of technology was first brought to me through the power of the Internet.

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Damn!

[ed: josh seems to have forgotten how to post ascii art in html, but we helped ease his embarrassment by fixing it for him]