There are times where we just need to take a moment and enjoy the Web for what it is. But, that’s the problem. We don’t always know how to define it. Not to ourselves, mind you, the keepers of the medium itself, but rather, to people around us who still don’t “get” what this is.

Bring me something

The Web brings us joy, sadness, pain and frustration. It brings us into a world where we can digest as much information as our brains will take and then offer us one million more destinations the next day and still not lose its ability to quickly regenerate.

Need to copy the recipe of a garlic oil from your favorite restaurant? Boom! There it is.

Need to adjust the settings on the remote you bought in 2001? Boom! There it is.

It’s a dangerous medium that requires parental supervision. It requires as much care of handling in some cases as a loaded gun.

Something point something

I don’t know about you, but I’m very tired of hearing the Web defined as a version scheme. The Web is constantly evolving and I don’t think we should assign numbers to it. Who is to say where the point of demarcation is for 2.0 or 3.0 or 723.6? It’s against the very nature of the anarchy we create to establish a cut-off to any one event other than the moment they displayed the first HTML at CERN.

MY Web exists out of many, many versions. It is always new and exciting. But it’s exciting because of content and technique, not because of a security patch or a specific mirrored logo and hash background. It’s exciting because wherever you go, there is the culmination of “someone’s” work; good or bad. It’s a way for creativity and sometimes very warped sense of self to be posted in the most immediate medium we’ve ever seen.

And, speaking of MY Web…

It is the ME era. The Web is about “self”. Even in collaboration we celebrate the brain matter of “this guy and that gal” who gallantly showed that they have the talent to justify the consultative costs. And, to be honest, that’s really very cool. The world has countries filled with amazingly talented and bright individuals who are a link away from solving your most intricate online problems. They are there for the picking; some better than others. When they’ve been taken for granted, they let people know, most of the time in a very public way.

The Web gives us good, bad, ugly and beautiful. It’s not the total solution, but it has the potential to solve many problems. I take for granted the world that is being created around me, but not half as much as the generation that will grow up with it already in place. Let’s just hope they enjoy it as much as I do.