Beaconfire Survey: Web 6.0

Editor’s  note: Each week, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors. We like to think of ourselves as ahead of the curve, so rather than focusing on Web 2.0 or Web 3.0, we’re already planning for Web 6.0. So this week, we asked the Beaconfire staff: What advances will be considered part of Web 6.0?

Lynn, Principal Consultant: With Web 6.0, my kitchen appliances will monitor my whereabouts (probably by cell phone) and know when I’m heading home. I’ll walk in the door to find dinner ready and waiting.  No more planning ahead!

Joanna, Production Specialist: Web 6.0 will see a simplification of the internet, eliminating extraneous, distracting features and focusing back on its original purpose: a global electronic forum for creating, sharing, and viewing pictures of cute kittens.

Milo, Marketing Consultant: Web 6.0 will usher in the era of the apolitical Web.  ePundits will be banished from the blogosphere, which will turn into a bucolic Arcadia with pan flute-playing satyrs.

Michael, Principal Consultant: I’m most excited about Web 6.0 Extramind communites. The groundbreaking occular implants with direct integration to your cognitive accelerator will for the first time truly allow you to see the world through someone’s elses eyes. Add the PediPlant 6.0 extenders to walk in their shoes. Extramind communities will foster a rich shared experience bringing the human race closer to empathatic understanding than ever before.

John Brian, Marketing Consultant: Forget video and audio – if a site doesn’t have a telepathic projection interface, it’s out of date! Not just for accessibility reasons, but by the time we get to Web 6.0, attention spans will be so short that we’ll have to beam content directly into supporters’ brains.

Jennifer, Project Manager: The nonprofit sector will stand out as an innovative leader in organizational effectiveness as practitioners of chaos theory demonstrate that data disintegration increases constituents’ pervasiveness and as a result the organization’s revenue and ROI on each fundraising dollar will multiply.

Ali, Marketing Consultant: The next wave of the Internet is going to bring the olfactory system into the web browsing experience. Computer screens will be equipped with scratch and sniff devices giving marketers one more thing to think about. "Should we use spring rain or campfire scent for the protect the forest campaign?"

Kate, Administrative Assistant: Because of the advancements in one-way time travel, most of Web 6.0 usage will entail writing in the sand with a stick.

Update: Tim, Functional Consultant: With the advent of Web 6.0 I look forward to the full (finally!) adoption of Habitrails 2.0. That we’ve been able to fully leverage the advances in reliability and speed gained over Habitrails Public Beta 2 (which seemed to be in beta status for years!) through the release of Habitrails 1.0 early last quarter, has been an absolute godsend for those of us who have truly come to rely on the features previously unavailable to us. But enough is enough! It’s time to accept that Habitrails 2.0 is the wave of the future and quit supporting the creaky old legacy builds that we’ve been trying to patch together with gum and tape for so long. I, for one, welcome our new hamster overlords.

Happy April Fools day from all of us at Beaconfire!