The damn internets.

Aka, everything’s a workaround and the web, while interesting as hell a times, is still way harder to work with than it needs to be. Aka, aka, notes at halftime–the internet is finished in 2025. Aka, aka, aka, time for one of my rambling diatribes.

Forget conversations with consumers for a second, I’m reaching critical mass and I need to vent before the core is exposed.* This is about frustrations with things that shouldn’t really be a problem at this point. While the internet and web will soon be entering their third full decade of widespread use, it’s safe to say they’ve been around long enough to at least have most of the kinks worked out, no? You hook up your DSL, plug in the ethernet cable, and off you go. 3-2-1, liftoff. And if it were that easy, then this post would be done.

But it’s not. What I’m talking about is how the world wide ‘interweb’ is still very much like the Wild West when it comes to any semblance of practical, user-orientated standards for browsers, websites and social media sites. We’ve become so used to creating little workarounds to the limitations, we don’t notice anymore.

Looking back at the early development of TV, it had its own kinks to be worked out–all new technology does–but by comparison, it was still up and running far sooner in it’s first 18 years than the internet seems to be doing since it officially became the web in 1989, (after years of being part of America’s defence network).

With TV, you plugged a set in, and off you went. Eventually, secondary markets in the form of improved hardware and a wide variety of content would spring up. Everything from VCRs, remote controls, NFL Sunday Ticket packages, to Blockbuster and TiVos. During this growth phase, did you ever have to worry about how the technology behind it all worked in order to use it? Doubt it.

Like Apple, it just did.

But with the internet, while it too ‘works’ lke TV, it’s also becoming more complicated to use as new and different experiences become more pervasive. While most, if not all industries have their own way of doing things that Joe consumer never sees, I can’t think of another technology where there’s such a convergence of the people who make it with the people who use it quite like the internet. (Maybe the supermarket where you see them restocking the shelves, even then, you’re not seeing them pick the lettuce.)

I digress however.

Did people have to know anything about hot type to read a newspaper? No. they just read it. Did people ever really care that magazines switched to digital printing so they could wait longer to print the latest breaking stories? No. Do people have to do anything with cars these days other than put gas in them or take them for an oil change? No.

The interweb though, is different.

Unless you’re my mother-in-law who can just about understand what that DSL icon on her desktop is, and who goes on maybe once every three days to check her email, you have to know something about how this all works just to get around these days.

And that’s not what the promise of the internets was supposed to be, at least according to Al Gore.

As for just getting up and running, connection speeds have improved, yes. Now, more places offer wireless service, and even entire cities are thinking about it, but even then, you experience spotty coverage. Besides that though, what else has really improved? I’m not talking about content either, that’s a whole other can of worms, but ask yourself one question punk:

Is your experience using the internet better now–or worse?

I suspect there are a whole bunch of people right in the middle.

As for the people who actually make the bells and whistles we charge clients so much for, the number of scripting languages are not only increasing, they’re also becoming more complicated. C#, VHML, Java, Latte, Mocha, Decaf, diet, low-cal, house, etc.

Then there’s the supporting cast like me, the bloggers who deal with widgets, code and other add-ons, followed by the general audience made up of average consumers and/or surfers. For this last group, it’s not the end of the world, but they still have to deal with things like basic updates for Flash players, Acrobat Reader, etc.

Even if they use the most basic of layout and font editing options that come with Blogger, MyFacebookTube, etc., people still run into situations where they will end up wanting to customize the look of their layout beyond that wonderful eight color palette. Then it becomes a situation where they won’t be able to do something without first doing something else, then trying this, then going here and relinking, but only if you use Safari, and then...

No wonder spree killings are on the rise.

Leaving those issues aside however, establishing a meaningful set of standards for all things web doesn’t appear to be on anyone’s radar for the time being. I know the reasons for it from a tech POV, from the many system and browser configurations you need to program for to the endless compatibility issues that pop up, and so on.

So what? Figure it out. Accepting the status quo by throwing your hands up in the air does nothing to solve the problem. Too many people responsible for where this is headed seem to have adopted a “It’s not my problem” mindset and are losing the forest for the trees, their heads buried in the release of their next little ‘killer app’ that won’t work right.**

And lest you think I’m complaining because I’m all thumbs or afraid like a caveman confronted with a Bic lighter, uh, no. I try pretty much everything that I read about or come across just to keep this stuff on my radar.

Take some of the basic tools we used on the recent Plaidnation Tour and which I experimented with for my Random Logo Project like: Flickr, which has a very non-intuitive interface to use for organizing your photos, forcing you to take three steps when you should be taking one. iPhoto is better, but then doesn’t allow sharing the way Flickr does.

Starting to see what I mean yet?

The popular link bookmarking site del.icio.us won’t allow me to even perform a basic function like deleting the bookmarks I imported without first deleting my entire account–then starting over. Google Reader doesn’t show the number of comments to the given posts I quickly scan each day, so I need co.mments to track them, then I have to subscribe to that page through Reader again. (Sage? No better.)

And there’s really no good reason for it.

This is like me still having to go behind the TV set to replace a tube, and oh by the way, soldering some wires together while I’m at it just to watch my show. Those are but just a few specific things I encountered with some of the more popular social media tools out there. (Typical things the A-list bloggers adopt first and then socialize among the blogosphere.) And I’m sure someone will likely respond here with a helpful workaround tip like, “Hey, did you try this...,” which, will probably work.

In a perfect world, maybe tech support would even offer to help me. And they’d be nice, like ‘stewardess nice’ after a long flight: “...bye...bye...bye...thanks for flying...bye.” Still, the most they could ever hope to offer me would not be good enough, because the product’s as good as it’s ever going to get. All they would be able to tell me about are the limitations that tie their hands:

“Maybe some day we’ll incorporate that feature sir, but for now...”

I appreciate you trying, really, but that’s not the point. It just shouldn’t have to be this way. While the internet is great for discovering useful information, should we be wasting our time seeking out solutions to the problems of the very thing we’re on? Maybe initially, ok, when you set up a blog, but this goes on all the time. Like the Rocky franchise, it’s neverending.

Even the world of print got together a long time ago and agreed that CMYK was a pretty good color standard to adhere to. They even said “fuck it, let’s print everything on paper too.” Holy cow, consensus. But online?

It’s getting worse, yet based on the comments I read in the various help forums from people, they seemed resigned to accepting these limitations, and even content to spend hours coming up with 500 different workarounds that don’t work. Least not when I try them.

It’s times like these where the saying “There’s more money in the treatment than the cure” comes to mind.

There’s supposed to be one voice overseeing things, but is the W3 really leading the web to its full potential, or is it only as effective as the FCC when it tries to regulate sound levels in commercials. Take blogging software.

The big three, TypePad, WordPress and Blogger all act like dysfunctional family members who won’t talk to each other at holiday time. I love how you have to retype in all of your info each time you comment on TypePad blogs, even though it says it remembers it all. Permalink and trackback functionality between all three is also lousy, something that if improved, you would think would better promote the spread of ideas and conversations even better out there on the cyberweb.

Awesome.

Another problem: how many new social media sites are there that launch every week, each trying to be ‘the one’ with that next killer app run by a 27-year old VC wanting to go public in the next phase of the dot com Powerball, more than he wants to put out something that actually works? Too many.

Every garage geek wants to come out with their own proprietary application that they want everybody to use. Ok, fair enough, go for it. If the things were well-thought out though and hit all the right notes for usability. But many times, they don’t.

I sit back and see this and can’t help but feel like I’m watching my kids move onto the next Christmas present before they finish unwrapping the previous one. Each new ‘toy’ offering more features than the previous one while developers try to one-up each other with offerings that are only about 70% of the way there.

And almost always, social media sites and developers want you to either learn their way of doing things, or their language. Even if it’s counterintuitive to how you might do things in the offline world. Does anyone besides Apple actually test stuff before releasing it with a common sense filter to see how people actually use it?

Probably not because it’s the end users who lose out since they’re the field test for it all and they’re the ones ultimately paying for it one way or another, both in terms of stress accumulated and time spent wasted. Make it right before it’s released? Why bother. Let’s just get it out there and release a patch or update at some point or let third-party vendors worry about a fix.

So, do I have all the answers? Nope. Maybe this stage of the web’s life is just us going through all this so that future generations will have smoother sailing with it all, I don’t know.

Still, it seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to solicit a list of ideas online via YouTube, major website or prominent blog. Poll software companies, techies, thought leaders and angry bloggers. Take the top 100 or so suggestions–I have a few–and based on the number of votes they each get, write them up as a list of standards to follow. (And not some obscure idea that only one person would ever use, like, “Every blog needs South Korean currency translation capabilities.” To which I reply “Smack!”)

No, we just need useful things to help the internet realize it’s full ‘internetness.’ And, that work.

My rant here is done.

*Metaphors like nowhere else people. Nowhere else.
**Told ya.

Tags: social media, Web 2.0