The boundary between Web1 and Web2 was so subtle and incremental most people outside of tech didn’t even notice when it was crossed: when IE7 supported XmlHttpRequest in 2008, paving the way for rich UIs, JavaScript supremacy starting with jQuery, and what was then called Ajax.
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I’d jumped onboard just a year earlier, dumping printer research at Xerox to starting the Web2 research at the Webster lab in 2007. HTML5 was a utopian dream, Ajax was a poorly supported design pattern, jQuery was brand new, Rails was viewed with suspicion, Java ruled the lab.
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Again really lucky timing. I hired a student of the creator of jQuery from RIT (dumb luck) and a hardcore Rails guy (a couple of others at the lab dabbled in rails but for fun; serious work was in Java) and between them they really took my half-ass product ideas to the next level
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Compared to that — really a sustaining evolutionary level-up in hindsight — Web2 to Web3 seems like a brute revolutionary disruption accompanied by massive mutual cultural hostility. Everything sacred in Web2 is profane in Web3 and vice versa. Web 1 to Web2 was barely a ripple.
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In hindsight, the 2 products I led (RIP both) were both too early. One would be great for the metaverse today (html5 visual trail maps), the other would fit Web3 perfectly (recursive multilevel services auctions). If I were younger I’d take another run at both.
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Woah! Thanks for sharing. This is exactly what I'm trying to design and build. I think Trailmeme was ahead of its time. Do you think now is a good time to have something like this?
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I think now I’d use as the starting point and use machine learning for the layout rather than manual, and throw in crypto based access control. Back then we were exploring regular permissioning on toll branches etc
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The challenging part for me is to figure out the middle path between a freeform spatial UI and the desktop metaphor of folders/lists. I think it's hard to crack something like this with a mind-map like UX.
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