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"""In the meantime Wikipedia is still the most useful product of the Internet""" You missed the point. There's nothing Wikipedia does that cannot be done in a

"""In the meantime Wikipedia is still the most useful product of the Internet""" You missed the point. There's nothing Wikipedia does that cannot be done in an native-gui mobile App. It's just a list of articles, a way to search for them, and a system to edit them. Nothing web particular about Wikipedia, one can imagine a Wikipedia app for mobile and desktop OSs that achieves the exact same thing.

jgroome 15y ago
But surely the success and therefore usefulness of Wikipedia is down to the fact that it's available to everyone with a web browser? Apps are only ever going to have a tiny proportion of the target market, compared to the number of general web users out there. That's what this is about. Of course you can do the same functionality that's made Wikipedia work in an app, but I don't think you'd ever get the numbers needed to make it useful.
- randomdata 15y ago
  In the model I was referring to, the browser doesn't go away. Only the built-in web does. Replaced by a more general virtual machine with reasonably low level access to the underlying system. We are, more and more, treating the web this way anyway. It is becoming a pointless abstraction. There is no particular reason for HTML, CSS, etc. to be built-in components, but that does not mean the web has to go away completely. If your network location wants to load an HTML document, you can command the browser to fetch an HTML renderer over the network. But you can just as easily serve an application of another kind, depending on your desires and needs.
- dextorious 15y ago
  """But surely the success and therefore usefulness of Wikipedia is down to the fact that it's available to everyone with a web browser? """ It's success when it was created, and maybe now, yes. But how about a future where everything has a mobile phone and/or tablet, but fewer have or care to use a web browser?
  - bad_user 15y ago
    Normal people never cared about web browsers, but that didn't stop web browsers from spreading like a virus. Most of them don't even understand the concept. If you ask them what a browser is, they'll probably answer Google. As an example, I love my e-Ink Kindle. The one big annoyance I have is that the browser on it is so awful that it is unusable. And it bothers me because book authors are often placing links to external references in the books I read. And I just want to read those references. Maybe add a comment or two if it's a blog. Since I'm there anyway, maybe I want to recommend the book on Facebook or Twitter with, you guessed it, a link. Maybe I want to search on the web for other discussions on the topic. And so on and so forth. It's not about love for the web browser per se. The browser is an awful virtual machine. Also the HTTP protocol is one of the featureless protocols in existence. The development model is scary sometimes as you've got to learn dozens of technologies, each specialized for a certain task, each broken in its own special way. But developers bitching about this are missing the point. It turns out that the openness of the web is disruptive and simple form elements communicating over a simple protocol is all you ever need for 80% of the use-cases. Quite the contrary, I'm seeing the web stronger than ever before. The one big problem I'm seeing however are walled gardens. Some day from now we'll look back and actually see what a big mistake this was. But the web as we know it will still be there. Because nothing can really replace it.
  - simonw 15y ago
    In a world where everyone has a tablet or phone, everyone will have a device with a browser. The web is too big and too valuable for it to ever make sense to create a device that can't use it.
raganwald 15y ago
There is something Wikipedia does that is not usually done in a native-gui app, and that is provide destinations for hyperlinks. Part of its utility is that you can link to it from blog posts, from essays, from all sorts of stuff. Which is the point of the OP. he’s comparing micro-walled-gardens to linkable web sites. If we are talking about a native-gui app or rich internet app that supports linking, you may have something. Then again, you may not. It is incredibly annoying to me whenever I try to access an IMDB link on my tablet and it asks me to install its native app. I now no longer to go imdb links because I’m tired of the speed bump.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  This is the web's biggest advantage, it is frictionless. You "install" Wikipedia the same way you use it, by typing its URL. I dont think native binaries can ever match that.
  - dextorious 15y ago
    Only, I don't use Wikipedia "by typing it's URL". I just visit it that way. I use it by entering a query in the search box. But with things like the App Store, or even apt-get and the like, native binaries can very much match that friction-less "installation". One major benefit that the web has is that: 1) you don't mess with your system (when using a web app) 2) you get automatic updates (when the server code updates) well, with the sandbox/app store model that mobile and native apps are going, the same can also hold true to them. Is there a single point of the web that cannot be replicated in native-land? I'll take Apple's App Store as an example, but you can substitute things like the Android store, apt-get, whatever: Easy discovery: App Store search, plus curation (same as web). Easy, no mess, installation: see App Store / iPhone App Store. Automatic updates: App Store updates Use web technologies: no problem, just add a webkit view in the app. Performance: better for native. Integration: better for native. Look and Feel: better for native. Ubiquiteness: you can have the same app in your laptop / phone / tablet Plus a web interface as a last resort (for example: Evernote). When laptops / smartphones / tablets were rarer, being able to access, say, your web mail, from anywhere with a connection without installing anything, made for a good proposition. Now, though? I, for one, only use the web Dropbox / Evernote / Gmail / Twitter interfaces as a last resort.

jgroome 15y ago

But surely the success and therefore usefulness of Wikipedia is down to the fact that it's available to everyone with a web browser? Apps are only ever going to have a tiny proportion of the target market, compared to the number of general web users out there. That's what this is about. Of course you can do the same functionality that's made Wikipedia work in an app, but I don't think you'd ever get the numbers needed to make it useful.

randomdata 15y ago
In the model I was referring to, the browser doesn't go away. Only the built-in web does. Replaced by a more general virtual machine with reasonably low level access to the underlying system. We are, more and more, treating the web this way anyway. It is becoming a pointless abstraction. There is no particular reason for HTML, CSS, etc. to be built-in components, but that does not mean the web has to go away completely. If your network location wants to load an HTML document, you can command the browser to fetch an HTML renderer over the network. But you can just as easily serve an application of another kind, depending on your desires and needs.
dextorious 15y ago
"""But surely the success and therefore usefulness of Wikipedia is down to the fact that it's available to everyone with a web browser? """ It's success when it was created, and maybe now, yes. But how about a future where everything has a mobile phone and/or tablet, but fewer have or care to use a web browser?
- bad_user 15y ago
  Normal people never cared about web browsers, but that didn't stop web browsers from spreading like a virus. Most of them don't even understand the concept. If you ask them what a browser is, they'll probably answer Google. As an example, I love my e-Ink Kindle. The one big annoyance I have is that the browser on it is so awful that it is unusable. And it bothers me because book authors are often placing links to external references in the books I read. And I just want to read those references. Maybe add a comment or two if it's a blog. Since I'm there anyway, maybe I want to recommend the book on Facebook or Twitter with, you guessed it, a link. Maybe I want to search on the web for other discussions on the topic. And so on and so forth. It's not about love for the web browser per se. The browser is an awful virtual machine. Also the HTTP protocol is one of the featureless protocols in existence. The development model is scary sometimes as you've got to learn dozens of technologies, each specialized for a certain task, each broken in its own special way. But developers bitching about this are missing the point. It turns out that the openness of the web is disruptive and simple form elements communicating over a simple protocol is all you ever need for 80% of the use-cases. Quite the contrary, I'm seeing the web stronger than ever before. The one big problem I'm seeing however are walled gardens. Some day from now we'll look back and actually see what a big mistake this was. But the web as we know it will still be there. Because nothing can really replace it.
- simonw 15y ago
  In a world where everyone has a tablet or phone, everyone will have a device with a browser. The web is too big and too valuable for it to ever make sense to create a device that can't use it.

raganwald 15y ago

There is something Wikipedia does that is not usually done in a native-gui app, and that is provide destinations for hyperlinks. Part of its utility is that you can link to it from blog posts, from essays, from all sorts of stuff. Which is the point of the OP. he’s comparing micro-walled-gardens to linkable web sites. If we are talking about a native-gui app or rich internet app that supports linking, you may have something. Then again, you may not. It is incredibly annoying to me whenever I try to access an IMDB link on my tablet and it asks me to install its native app. I now no longer to go imdb links because I’m tired of the speed bump.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
This is the web's biggest advantage, it is frictionless. You "install" Wikipedia the same way you use it, by typing its URL. I dont think native binaries can ever match that.
- dextorious 15y ago
  Only, I don't use Wikipedia "by typing it's URL". I just visit it that way. I use it by entering a query in the search box. But with things like the App Store, or even apt-get and the like, native binaries can very much match that friction-less "installation". One major benefit that the web has is that: 1) you don't mess with your system (when using a web app) 2) you get automatic updates (when the server code updates) well, with the sandbox/app store model that mobile and native apps are going, the same can also hold true to them. Is there a single point of the web that cannot be replicated in native-land? I'll take Apple's App Store as an example, but you can substitute things like the Android store, apt-get, whatever: Easy discovery: App Store search, plus curation (same as web). Easy, no mess, installation: see App Store / iPhone App Store. Automatic updates: App Store updates Use web technologies: no problem, just add a webkit view in the app. Performance: better for native. Integration: better for native. Look and Feel: better for native. Ubiquiteness: you can have the same app in your laptop / phone / tablet Plus a web interface as a last resort (for example: Evernote). When laptops / smartphones / tablets were rarer, being able to access, say, your web mail, from anywhere with a connection without installing anything, made for a good proposition. Now, though? I, for one, only use the web Dropbox / Evernote / Gmail / Twitter interfaces as a last resort.