Is the URL headed for the endangered technology list?
Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst, Social Computing, Forrester Research, tweeted recently on the subject of Chrome, Google's new open source browser.
Jeremiah postulates:
That's an interesting prediction, predicated on the ability of a browser translate search terms into destinations on the Internet. Farfetched? Not at all. After all, there already exists a layer of obfuscation between a URL and an Internet destination; one that translates host names into IP addresses, hiding the complexity and difficult in remembering IP
But IP addresses, though obfuscated and hidden from view for most folks, aren't an anachronism any more than the engine of car. Its complexity, too, is hidden from view and concern for most folks. We don't need to know how the engine gets started, just that turning the key will get it started. In similar fashion, most folks don't need to know how clicking on a particular URL gets them to the right place, they just need to know to click on it.
Operating technology doesn't necessarily require understanding of how it works, and the layer of abstraction we place atop technology to make it usable by the majority doesn't necessarily make the underlying technology an anachronism, although in this case Jeremiah may be right - at least from the view point that using URLs as a navigation mechanism may become an anachronism. URLs will still be necessary, they are a part of the foundation of how the web works. But IP addresses are also necessary, and so is the technology that bridges the gap between IP addresses and host names, namely DNS.
More interesting, I think, is that Jeremiah is looking into his crystal ball and seeing the first stages of Web 3.0, where context and content is the primary vehicle that drives your journey through the web rather than a list of hyperlinks. Where SEO is king, and owning a keyword will be as important, if not more so, than brand. The move to a semantic web necessarily eliminates the importance of URLs as a visible manifestation, but not as the foundational building blocks of how that web is tied together.
Lori