Creating a better internet

I have no doubt that the internet is one of the most important creations in mankinds history, but I also have no doubt that Tim Berners-Lee did not have the internet as we know it in the early 21^st century in mind when he was originally envisioning it. Security problems, criminality, spam, junk-mail, annoying web sites, conflicting information and the increasing difficulties in finding what one is looking for are making the internet more and more of a challenge,

and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we didn’t see internet usage plateau or even begin to slip back, not in terms of the number of users connecting, but in terms of the amount of time spent online.

There are already changes afoot at the major search engines, modifying their search algorithms to scan websites for content relevance, rather than simply the relevance of the tags and titles. It won’t be too long before the current system of periodically pulling websites to be inspected by human operators for quality is replaced and automated. A little birdie tells me that the programming for this is currently in testing as I write. This may well change the whole arena of search engine optimization, with more emphasis on quality and relevance than has previously been the case. Of course, there are several vocal opponents to this arguing that they would rather be free to make up their own minds , and are fundamentally opposed to what they see as nannying interference by the “Big brother” search giants.

Personally I am quite happy to self regulate my internet use and the level of importance I give to one site over another, and I tend to be fairly discriminating in my use of search engines anyway, but I can see the point of a certain amount of content filtering and checking, and if it is going to be done, and perhaps I should whisper this, but…..I’m ok with the major search engines doing this. I believe that they have too much to lose, particularly after the whole Microsoft competition court cases, to risk too many underhand tactics when it comes to presenting the search results that people actually want rather than what the search engines want to show us.

The question really is a simple one. How can companies, and particularly web design companies help with making the internet something that we can all be proud of? For me the answer is also a simple one, by creating good, honest, high quality web sites with content that has meaning and relevance to the target audience. By being honest and ethical in working with the search engines to optimize websites fairly. By becoming more transparent and open about the way that websites and rankings work and allowing the general internet user the freedom to browse in peace and make their own discoveries. As an industry we already have a model for this, albeit one that doesn’t necessarily work too well yet. The open source community has tremendous potential, once you get beyond the infighting and factionalisation that seems at times to be endemic, and if that could be made to work as it was envisaged then perhaps we could have the internet that we all deserve.