Move The Web Forward

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November 10, 2009 at 12:01am

Our industry, seemingly, has been at a stand-still for some time. While we’ve waited for Internet Explorer to adopt CSS 2.1 (which they’ve done so no complaining), there hasn’t been a lot of movement. At least, visibly.

The truth of course, is a far more complex shadier thing which you wouldn’t bring home to Mom. The truth is that there are tons of cool, crazy things being developed or thought of by people all the time. A lot of these see the light of day. They become jQuery or Google Wave or Skylab. Things that grab you by the balls (or respective genetic equivalent) and act like a hallucinogen, sending your brain down a visionary path.

With so much information out there, it’s hard to keep tabs on whom is building what, or what could move us forward or change how we do things. Some of these attempts will fail (except mine, of course), but that doesn’t mean they’re not founded on good ideas. Like the Velvet Underground inspired 1,000 bands, a piece of well-written ideas or tools can move mountains.

But where do the ideas go

On the internet, I’m fairly certain you can figure out how best to give your Gerbil a proper funeral, or how to kill a swarm of bees (the true army of darkness in my opinion). But what about things that are being moved on, thought of or developed actively. As much as I appreciate Zeldman and his cadre of internet darlings, there’s not much practicality in a big form letter. Having Zeldman says he supports HTML5 is great, but you don’t learn from it, you don’t dream. Move the web forward is a site about visions and tools.

I wanted to chronicle the ideas that light asses on fire, a timeline of the great things that are already here or being envisioned. Practical ideas that aren’t far off in the future.

Mark Pilgrim’s Dive into HTML5 is probably the best example. It’s a technology that is coming to fruition but there are still parts of it hangin’ with Tumnus in Narnia. On the other hand, Anil Dash’s The Pushbutton Web is on the opposite of the spectrum. It’s a pipe dream in many cases, with some of the features plausible now: but well though-out. When something is this well thought-out it can inspire those to actually make it. It may fail, it may be a horrible prediction, but its enough to make me think its trying to move us somewhere.

It’s not about who is who right now.

Some of these are just projects, and there are only four links. It’s not about specific people, it’s about ideas and tools. If you have something well-written that you feel will inspire others, please self-promote the crap out of yourself. I don’t mind if you tell me how great you are and why your idea is ingenious: I just want to see if it moves us to somewhere.

Initially, Move the Web Forward was going to be a manifesto written by me to the internet. It was the brainchild of a ridiculous ego that could crush Godzilla (and Godzooky) and a penchant for late night dreaming/drinking. I contacted Matt Brown, a very talented designer, whom I call a friend (and I pay him good money for that privilege). I wanted to capture my text, my manifesto, my poorly-written diatribe. This was about a year ago. The text was not a good idea. The text was a complaint. He carried it with gusto like a champ with a beautiful design. Then, a year later, my idea had changed. I realized I’m not there yet mentally. I needed, though, to catalog those who were there and were changing things.

On the subject of Matt Brown: hire him or send him money. His client care and talent is like a massage, and your back muscles will be more relaxed. He is not a sexual euphemism though, so don’t read too into that.

I’m trying to find our Martin Luthers: King or German.

When Jesse James Garett wrote about Ajax he noticed what was happening, and wrapped it in a beautiful package. He was like a digital Martin Luther nailing his shit to the wall and saying “this is how we do it”. I’m looking for this. I’m looking for you bastards creating or write something that says “No… this way”. So yes, it won’t be updated frequently and no, I don’t care.

I’m looking for Martin Luthers. I’m looking for the dreamers, visionaries, young-upstarts, assholes and motherfuckers who want to shift the norm.

So please, subscribe, submit and enjoy Move the Web Forward. Help me catalog this. I hope I’ll get better and smarter from it. I hope you do too.

Unrelated: send money.