The New Media Elite

Looking through a back issue of Wired magazine, I came across an article about three guys who think they're on to something big. To quote from Wired 4.03:

... the Web isn't for rookies anymore.

"At this point," says [Nova] Spivak, co-founder and director of marketing for EarthWeb, a New York City-based Web production house, "to compete you need multimillion-dollar investment backing. You've got to be able to do digital imaging, you've got to code in Java and CGI. You need to know how to work with Oracle databases, and you need access to high bandwidth. Even a T1 isn't enough."

... Spivak sees a shakeout coming as the Web evolves from a playground for hacker hobbyists into a marketplace for the rich and famous.

Aw, bite me.

The article continues on, pointing out how Nova and his two brother visionaries are rocking the Web with such revolutionary pages that have all us po' folks down hea' packin' up our bags to head back fo' the farm.

A quick tour of Earthweb's site proves that these guys are no slouches. Some spiffy graphics and Java apps abound, including a three-dimensional Tetris game that plays pretty damn well. (Although their choice of rotate-and-maneuver keys -- the same as the cursor keys on that user-interface marvel called "vi" -- leaves something to be desired). They're definitely reaching the "we're not worthy!" phase of Java evolution.

But I take exception to Nova's stance of the "new" Web. Maybe this is all true if you're hobnobbing with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, or the New York Stock Exchange (some of their more prominent clients). But how many sites are going to fade to oblivion because they don't have some killer Java applet bouncing a ball on their home page or a CGI script producing anagrams of the user's email address?

Accompanying the article is a picture of Nova and Co. dressed in tailored Armani suits with garish power ties and flammable hairdos. In the Sixties, you didn't trust anyone over thirty. Now, you don't trust anyone with more money invested in their clothes than in their home computer system. I'm nitpicking here, it's not nice to slam someone just because they take professional pride in their appearance, but ... these guys are coding Java? It's like watching the all-star quarterback handing in mind-blowing term papers on Kant when everyone else is still struggling with Decartes. You rub your eyes, shake your head, and wish it away.

Then there's the "shakeout coming as the Web evolves from a playground for hacker hobbyists into a marketplace for the rich and famous." What the hell, did they hire Robin Leach as their marketing director?

Who's building the software platforms? Hackers. Who's pushing the standards through committees? Hackers. Who's got the goods on the next generation of protocols to make this stuff faster? Hackers. Don't slight the engineers before the bridge is built.

With all that said, I still have to admit to a queasy feeling that the Web is going to turn into a dredge pit of GIF animations and Brite-Lite marquees, but it's not because the Web is somehow maturing ... rather because it's going to go the way of broadcast television, down the path of lowest common denominator. Who wants to read a full page of pesky text? The Chrysler home page has a really awesome animation of a Dodge speeding along the bottom of the screen. Co-oool.

In the Sixties, you didn't trust anyone over thirty. Now, you don't trust anyone with more money invested in their clothes than in their home system.

More and more, there appears to be a greater emphasis on presentation over content, the very anathema that was being attacked by those fellows at CERN years ago. There's nothing wrong with a swell looking site -- but the good looks should be a supplement to substance.

Nova Spivak's remarks remind me of the standard programming mistake of feature-overflow. Too many programmers, reading the journals on the latest and greatest APIs and techniques and methodologies, will overdesign the hell out of a program that was destined for a much simpler future. A Web page has a similar role, but EarthWeb, for a hefty fee, is ready to stupefy with complexity rather than impress with simplicity. How does the old saying go? "When you can't dazzle 'em with dexterity, baffle 'em with bullshit."

Bullshit, indeed. What does multimillion-dollar backing buy you? Maybe something as mind-numbing as networkMCI's "Gramercy Press" tour. Well-spent bucks let you interact face-to-face with well-paid actors and actresses who pretend to work at some artsy publishing house where they struggle to make ends meet but seem to have enough resources to let people lounge at home all day and do email from their bed. And who says American competitiveness has gone to pot?

And that T1 line is plenty useful for pushing out huge graphics, like MTV's site, which features large, garish displays for all those rich and famous Beavis and Butthead fans. All those old folks who think that the MTV Generation is impatient obviously don't realize that we are quite content to wait and eternity for a Clearasil ad to download.

Netscape is reporting that 70% of its HTTP server sales is for corporate intranet applications. Microsoft's recent OLE-cum-ActiveX announcements basically position everyday office workers to put spreadsheets on the internal corporate Web. I dunno ... this isn't the stuff of glamour and stardom. Sounds pretty damn boring already.

What really burns me about Spivak's comments -- if you don't think I'm spewing acid already -- is his cyberguru attitude that (damn it all!) should have died with nitrogen-cooled mainframes in the Seventies, back when you had to submit a batch job to the system administrators and wait eons to get the output. The microcomputer revolution was like nailing a list of theses on the hallowed entryway to the computer labs of yore. If I have to come up with millions of bucks, heavy-duty networking equipment, and an Oracle database to have a well-read site, then something went drastically wrong at some point in time. If I have to hire out for big names and professional programmers to get my point across, then it's time to re-think this new medium. We're going the wrong direction if new developments take the technology out of people's hands.

Which gets me to a point where I have to start backpedaling. Lest anyone thinks these guys are just sitting around and soaking up their clientele's cash, they've actually been keeping busy with Gamelan, probably the biggest and best Java repository on the Net. It's a knockout site, and anyone learning or using Java should spend time looking around. How does a self-respecting Web critic rationalize this sort of disparity, the elitist remarks and a tres cool site?

What else: you rip 'em for the first, compliment 'em on the second, and let the readers form their own opinions.

Look: the Web will have its share of net.celebrities. The rich and famous will be utilizing the Net for their own gratuitous self-promotion, natch. It's just that they're going to have to fight for their mindshare and bandwidth, rather than just buy it up like traditional broadcasting or publishing (a la JFK Jr.'s George).

You're not kicking the hobbyist geeks out of this party quite yet. Pass me a brewski, will ya?