Facebook vs. Y we agored – neges bwysig gan Tim Berners-Lee

Your social-networking site becomes a central platform—a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it. The more this kind of architecture gains widespread use, the more the Web becomes fragmented, and the less we enjoy a single, universal information space.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web&page=2

100% cytuno. Am y we Gymraeg yn enwedig.

In contrast, not using open standards creates closed worlds. Apple’s iTunes system, for example, identifies songs and videos using URIs that are open. But instead of “http:” the addresses begin with “itunes:,” which is proprietary. You can access an “itunes:” link only using Apple’s proprietary iTunes program. You can’t make a link to any information in the iTunes world—a song or information about a band. You can’t send that link to someone else to see. You are no longer on the Web. The iTunes world is centralized and walled off. You are trapped in a single store, rather than being on the open marketplace. For all the store’s wonderful features, its evolution is limited to what one company thinks up.

Other companies are also creating closed worlds. The tendency for magazines, for example, to produce smartphone “apps” rather than Web apps is disturbing, because that material is off the Web. You can’t bookmark it or e-mail a link to a page within it. You can’t tweet it. It is better to build a Web app that will also run on smartphone browsers, and the techniques for doing so are getting better all the time.

Some people may think that closed worlds are just fine. The worlds are easy to use and may seem to give those people what they want. But as we saw in the 1990s with the America Online dial-up information system that gave you a restricted subset of the Web, these closed, “walled gardens,” no matter how pleasing, can never compete in diversity, richness and innovation with the mad, throbbing Web market outside their gates. If a walled garden has too tight a hold on a market, however, it can delay that outside growth.

3 sylw

  1. Rwy’n cytuno 100%. Rwy’n cofio AOL yn y 1990au. Collon nhw eu mantais am fod y byd y tu allan i’r wal wedi tyfu’n gyflymach. Rhaid gobeithio y bydd datblygwyr yn gweld mantais o osgoi Apple a Facebook. Byd cul iawn fydd e os bydd eu llwyddiant yn parhau.

  2. Yn cytuno 50%. Mae peth o iTunes i’w weld rwan ar y we (yr apps i gyd). Mae na bosibilrwydd fydd iTunes yn gallu fod un hollol agored ag i’w weld ar y we gan ei fod wedi ei adeladu efo XML. Ond fel mae pethau ar y funud mae’n angenrheidiol i iTunes fod yn rhaglen o fewn ‘wal’. Gafodd iTunes ei greu oherwydd yr iPod ag mae’n hollol iawn i brynu CD ag rhoi’r cerddoriaeth yn iTunes. Mi allwch hefyd lawrlwytho cerddoriaeth o Amazon, 7 Digital a rhanfwyaf or we os yw’r cerddoriaeth yn DRM free, fel mae o ar iTunes.
    O ran yr App Store, mae o ar gau mewn ffordd ond yn gwneud bywyd llawer yn haws i’r cwsmeriaid, ag yn ffordd i developer gael ei raglen o flaen miliynau. Ag os ydych yn meddwl mai Android di’r ffordd, edrychwch i mewn i’r problemau mae’r developers di gael i gael ei apps i weithio ar handsets wahanol.
    Ddim llawer o farn am Facebook.

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