Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bow Tie Theory: Researchers Map The Web

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the the-logo-looks-neat dept.

Paula Wirth, Web Tinker writes "Scientists from IBM Research, Altavista and Compaq collaborated to conduct the most intensive research study of the Web. The result is the development of the "Bow Tie" Theory. One of the initial discoveries of this ongoing study shatters the number one myth about the Web ... in truth, the Web is less connected than previously thought. You can read more about it "

3 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. This is no surprise by ballestra · · Score: 5
    Slashdotters, and especially Everything noders, are good at including relevant links in their posts, and presumably on their own pages. The problem is that most of the content being created for the web is written the same way as traditional magazine or newspaper copy. It's the old 90/10 rule: 90% of the eyeballs are viewing 10% of the available content, and that 10% is generally on commercial sites one or two clicks away from the Yahoo, Netscape, MSN, or AOL main pages.

    Look at the money going into streaming media. A large segment of the business world still sees the internet as just another medium for TV or radio broadcasting. By it's very nature broadcasting is not interconnected, it's passive and linear.

    Tim Berners-Lee wrote in his book, Weaving the Web that the main obstacle to the web being a true information web of shared knowledge is that content is controlled by too few. He was upset that browsers were developed which could not edit web pages like his original browser/editor.

    The silver lining to this, IMHO, is the "weblog" phenomenon, including sites like Slashdot, where ordinary users can contribute their ideas, especially in html format so that they can contribute links. I really believe that some day soon the conventional media sites will be forced to give this kind of capability to their readers, or else risk losing all those eyeballs to Slash-like sites.

    "What I cannot create, I do not understand."

  2. Re:The web is broken. by Stiletto · · Score: 5

    I can't stand developing for 3 different browsers on 4 different platforms, 12 screen resolutions, 3 color depths...

    Then don't! Thats one thing many "web authors" still don't get... The WWW is a text-oriented medium. It's a page of text that has links to other pages of text. Everything else is just cruft.

    HTML doesn't define how a web site should look to the pixel, and this is one of it's strong points. It's up to the user to decide how to view a site. If the user doesn't want images, your site should look just fine without them.

    The minute you start checking to make sure your site looks the same on all browsers, you should re-think your entire site. Why do you want it to look the same on all browsers (it won't by the way...)? This usually indicates that you are focusing too much on presentation and not enough on content.

    The web is broke. We're not using it properly

    I agree with your second statement. The web isn't broke... people just aren't using it properly. There are so many corporate sites that look like brochures. It's sickening. My previous job was to set up a web page for a small business, and all they wanted me to do was scan each page of their brochure into GIF's, put them up on the web, and put "forward" and "backward" buttons on the bottom to navigate between pages. I said, WTF!?!? The concept of actually including text information and links to other resources was totally absurd to my boss.

    These kinds of people think of the web only as a marketing tool, and thus can't take advantage of the power it has to offer.

  3. The web is broken. by TheTomcat · · Score: 5

    I'm a web developer. I've always loved the potential of the web until recently. Now I don't like working with it. I can't stand developing for 3 different browsers on 4 different platforms, 12 screen resolutions, 3 color depths, and design templates that came from a print artist who thinks that the web is one big brochure.

    The web is broke. We're not using it properly, there are too many poorly done corporate sites, contributing to insecurity, poor usability and incompatibility.

    Many clients we work with are dead set against sending anyone away from their site. I don't think they realize that links are what the web is made of. This contributes to the unreachable part of the bowtie. These corporate folk are afraid that by linking away from the site, they will lose a viewer, and that use won't find their way back. They don't realize that the web is a pull technology, and the if the user was looking for certain information, the user will come back if it is the best source of such info. The back button is one of the browsers most used features.

    We need more of these research projects to help us figure out what needs to be changed. The W3C is a start, but it's expensive to join and it's rare that you find a website that conforms to the standards. In fact, I've run into web developers who have never HEARD of the w3c.

    The web is a new, completely different medium. It's not a CDROM, it's not a brochure, it's not TV. We can't keep treating it like these other media.