I had an interesting piece of mail come across my desk this week. It was from the NSW government promoting the ‘2009 Youth Week Website Competition’. Basically it is asking for submissions from young people (under 25) to design the look of the website for 2009 Youth Week. A great idea.
And for the most part, it looks like a worthwhile project that some more creative students might like to take on. However, one thing did concern me a little. Under the ‘Style and Layout’ section, there is a heading on Download speed, which essentially says that the total web page should download over a ’slow’ connection in less than 10 seconds, and that the page size should not be greater than 120kb. “There should be no large images or Flash files.”
Does this ring alarm bells for anyone else? Instead of encouraging our young people to design a web site that is engaging and uses the interactive content that is so typical of the web today (I hesitate to use the ‘web 2.0′ term), the participants are hamstrung by conditions that might have been suitable 10 or more years ago, but surely not today!
Needless to say, now I’ve finished this post, the competition details will be filed in the circular file…
Just read a really interesting article: http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=590685
In it, Sir Jackie Stewart discusses the need for current F1 drivers to have coaches. All other sports have coaches, so why do formula 1 drivers think they don’t need them? Current ‘big thing’ to yet win a world championship, Lewis Hamilton, claims he doesn’t need one. He wants to get to the top on his own… I wonder at what cost though.
Hamilton lost last year’s championship by a solitary point. He had a remarkable season, there’s no denying that, but he also made a few mistakes. I wonder… had he a driving coach, would those mistakes still have been made? Its a question to which we’ll never know the answer, but it is worth thinking about.
It also makes me think about why our Governments STILL don’t place any value in advanced driver training of any kind. Our young people pass a short test, then are let loose on the roads for the best part of the next 60 years without another mandatory test.
These are the same demographic group who are significantly over represented in almost every crash statistic you care to name – and have been for a long time. Governments have tried almost everything, lower speed limits, curfews, passenger limits… all for very little change. Why can they not see the advantage in driver training?
Perhaps we need a new angle… Jackie Stewart for PM anyone?
I think I’ve discovered why I’ve an inherent dislike of using ‘Web 2.0′ terminology to describe the interactive nature of the web as it exists right now.
I was reading through a great article in the latest (August 2008) PC User magazine, when it finally dawned on me. I think that due to the continually changing nature of how the web is growing and changing, to label it anything at all, is contrary to its very nature. The article itself points towards the future of the internet, attempting to discuss ‘Web 3.0′ and even up to ‘Web 10.0′ (or ‘n.0). I think my problem (and it may or may not be just MY problem) is that as soon as you label or ‘pigeon hole’ what’s happening on the web, and how people are using it, that label will almost be superseded as quickly as it is given.
Having said that – I don’t know what the answer is. I understand the desire for people to distinguish between the original static nature of the web, and the dynamic, interactive ‘beast’ it has become. But I really wonder if we’re doing ourselves a disservice by trying to dissect one from the other?
Are we better therefore, to discuss and acknowledge the constant state of flux that is ‘the web’, rather than try to label something that never remains the same?
