| Jun 19 |
5 Comments
|
A friend of mine, Adam Timberlake, wrote this article for Grumpycoder a while back and I’ve had a few requests for me to repost it, so here you go guys:
AJAX has become the talk of the town in recent months. Whole array of sites are using the new technology to craft websites that are just a little more fancy than in the days of Lynx. Although the question does arise, are we utilising the immense power that AJAX has placed into our receiving hands wisely? Naturally sites love to offer the resemblance of a standalone application to their doting users, but after all, this is the Internet. It is the stage and we are the audience!
Evidently, it’s all fine and dandy in many respects, a website telling me in real-time that I’ve made a momentous error in filling in a basic form. I wriggle under my desk as AJAX awakes to point me in the right direction. That’s great! However, with scientists currently working on artificial intelligent robots, should we not be aspiring to weave our websites in such a way? After all, there is an abundance of psychology that is fed into the computer every second of everyday. Every instance when we fulfil our own autocratic tendencies by pushing our mouse left and right.
After all, we have the means for transmitting that data in real-time. The days have gone where we await a user telling the system what they want; the system should be the conscious mind of the individual! Based on one or two mathematical algorithms, several or more scientific concepts and one almighty assumption, we can begin to deliver data to a user before they’ve even thought about it! And we already have a technology eager to perform that errand for us – AJAX.
Anyone on the Internet these days can become anyone they choose to be. Social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo, Virb and a plethora of others, merely settle for the same old routines. It’s hard to ignore the fact that many of these sites simply glide on past the more complex theories out there which would make their system that more engaging. After all, I already know what I want, but I do not know what you offer. Instead of me telling you what I want to see, you tell me what you have for me. Now that would be different!
It’s clear to see that when a user navigates throughout your website, they are taking the path they desire the most. It is far from a random path composed of random clicks, but rather an intricate projection of my current state. Such as, if there is no referral link, could we make the supposition that they were linked to this site via a friend, and really have no such interest in that page? How about if a female is browsing many pictures of the same gender, is she a lesbian, lonely or just insecure? This is a question of core emotions; it’s the cognitive processes which are so abundant when browsing the Internet. It sure is worth questioning whether or not AJAX could be the means of gathering psychological profiles on visitors. Our experiences on the Internet could be both eerie and greatly enchanting.
An Internet that surpasses the vexatious ability to point our errors and instead, skip beyond and offer the tailored solution! Perfect?
Popularity: 25% [?]
