It’s hard to believe that even as recently as 20 years ago, the Internet was not a part of the lives of most people. Today, high speed broadband is near ubiquitous, and even those who do not have fixed Internet connections most likely have smartphones which they can use to access the web.
In the early days, the Internet was reserved for the military and academics, and only the most tech savvy of people could get online, let alone navigate the maze of arcane server technologies and markup required to get a website up and running. Fortunately that is now no longer the case.
The New Web is User Friendly
Today, the Internet is far easier to access, and to contribute to. Thanks to one-click installer services and affordable web hosting, anyone can get a WordPress or Joomla website up and running, host a forum, or run an online photo gallery. Modern web publishing tools are so easy to use that they feel just like a traditional word processor or photo editor. There is no need to be a computer scientist to get your website up and running.
Rich, High Speed Publishing for All
The combination of high speed internet connections and affordable storage mean that it is now easy for anyone to publish video online. Whether you choose to run a podcast or post video content to YouTube, or share your video and other rich media via your own website, the fact is you can now broadcast content to a huge audience quickly and easily. During the early days of the web, we were limited to text-only publishing, and it was difficult to create pages that would look good in all web browsers. While some ISPs offered walled gardens and proprietary options for displaying more visually appealing content, in general web developers were better off keeping their pages simple with just text, limited images and no interactivity.
Users are Now More Demanding
During the early days of the web, simply having a web presence at all was enough to wow most visitors. Providing even an online business card with basic contact details made people think of your brand as one that was ‘switched on’ and tech savvy. When it came to Website Design Bristol consumers were not really concerned, as long as they could get the information they needed. Today, every business seems to have a website, so looks and functionality are more important. Rather than trying to design your own website, it is a good idea to use a service like launch your business who offer webdesign in Bristol to design your website for you.
In the early days, the number of websites was measured in the hundreds, or thousands, and manually edited directories such as the early iteration of Yahoo offered access to websites. Now, we rely on search engines to help us find specific websites amongst the more than a billion that exist online.
The Internet has evolved so that everyone has a voice, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to get yours heard. Today, more than ever before, it is important to have a great design and good content if you want to get noticed.