David Emery Online

Boring.

14 December 2013

The Internet is fatigued.

Or, to be more accurate and a little less snappy; people that work on the Internet are fatigued. Tired out. Bored.

We are in an interesting time when it comes to working in digital. Digital used to be an exciting wild west, where new completely revolutionary sites, apps and devices would materialise out of the either on an extremely regular basis. We used to be the trail blazers, getting glimpses into a future that was once the preserve of science fiction books and films.

I remember trying to explain Twitter to people when it first came out – why it was worth participating in – and it was practically impossible. It was a whole new concept, and that was exciting.

But now Twitter is 6 years old. It’s still just as interesting and useful a medium now – if not more so – then it was at the start, but it’s not exciting any more, is it? If you’re working in digital yes, advances in ad targeting, or photo previews in the timeline, or any of the other features Twitter have added recently might be useful to your job but they’re not going to get you out of bed in the morning, are they?

Same applies to Facebook, where I’ve seen countless people working in digital saying it’s becoming less relevant, whereas I think that in truth that really means it’s becoming less exciting.

There has always been a boom and bust cycle online. Yahoo gave way to Alta Vista which gave way to Google. Friendster, MySpace, Facebook. Countless other niches that follow a similar pattern. The industry is obsessed with that pattern, billing everything as an “[insert category leader] killer”, and that continual churn is what so many people are used to working towards. Looking for the next big thing, to jump on it first and to ride that wave. Not necessarily for personal gain or anything quite so crass, but because that’s what makes certain types of people – who there are lots of in digital – tick.

Going back to Facebook, everyone at the moment is looking to messaging apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat as the next step in the cycle. “These apps are massive with the youth” they say “they’re going to be Facebook’s downfall”. Et cetera, et cetera. But there’s always an assumption that the pattern must continue, that Facebook will fall and something else will rise to take its place.

But that isn’t inherently true.

We are entering a point of maturity online and digitally. It is inevitable that at some point things will settle and stabilise, much as any industry does, and I think we’re beginning to see the start of that. The Wild West days are over, and we’re starting to see the state of play settle down.

Innovation and change is driven by technology, and technology adoption, and people working in digital have got used to this as the norm. But there are certain areas that are seeing the pace in technology innovation slow. The web is one of them, where adoption is incredibly high and new, significant browser features are low. Hence, the cycle slows and sites and companies become more persistent (how long now have you been using Google to search for things?)

This of course doesn’t mean innovation is dead, far from it. Mobile devices are still changing the landscape as they become more fully featured; there is still so much more to do with things like location services, wearable computing and the like. But these are new categories that don’t necessarily destroy the old ones. They add, complement maybe, but no more destroy then TV did with radio.

Back to boredom, then. People working in digital are bored because, in short, some of it is just not that exciting any more. But that really hits on the real problem – “digital” doesn’t exist any more. Maybe this is obvious; we’ve got to a point where digital is as inherent in everything as electricity is. Those who started working in digital did so when it was a specific field you could work in (I’m sure some of you remember the phrase “new media”, for example), but now working in digital doesn’t mean anything at all – saying you work in digital is as ridiculous as saying that you work in physical. So by working in “digital” that really means you’re flailing around trying to find something exciting in a field that is no longer by definition exciting, because it’s a field that no longer exists separate from anything else.

Up until this point it’s been the technology that’s been interesting, but ahead of us we need to refocus on back on creativity, and what we can do with what is now established. It’s no longer a race to find the next thing, but a race to do the best thing.

Innovation in content, not technology.

Sounds pretty exciting to me.