Yesterday I was taking the usual 15 minute drive back home from the office, taking time to relax, listening to Zero7 and taking in some of the great views of the river front as I drove over it when seemingly from out of nowhere came a rust speckled older model ford swerving wildly around me. A quick glance that direction brought me to realize very quickly that this man had a fire to get to and I was prohibiting that by not moving at the pace that he wanted. After a quick finger gesture he gave me a look that the devil himself would be proud of and sped up again quickly disappearing into the mess of vehicles ahead of me.
As I thought about his actions a little bit I began to take a look at the constant rush that people are in as we lives our lives at a 160 kilometers per hour. Although I would venture to bet that most of the Web community is not this way, I think typical users take this same behavior from everyday life online. A prime example of this might be the almost constant need for the MySpace generation to constantly see who might have dropped them a message or what event might have been planned in the 2 minutes since they last checked their profiles. On for a quick second to check, then off again.
I would venture to guess that most of the “typical” users don’t often deviate from their everyday routines. Most I would bet have a routine similar to this:
Most of us (Web folks) have many other methods of finding new and cool information on a day to day basis. Tools like Digg, Techcrunch and Slashdot are largely unrealized by the average user population because most of the information presented on those sites doesn’t pertain or interest them. Even something as simple as WebMD doesn’t hold the attention of the average user as they are going to get on, research their condition or ailment, print that information and move on.
Is there a way to eat up more of the average user’s time online? Let’s face it; the group that I am considering average users is a considerably larger group then the tech savvy or Web group of users. That larger base equals more dollars, so why don’t we try harder to bring them in? This lends directly back to the lack of time that we all have in our lives.
As technical people most of us have hours in front of or near the computer. Time we get to spend working, playing and learning on the internet. Most people are not afforded this convenience, and once work is done many go home to children, spouses, workouts, television and any number of other things that take up their time.
It can be said that until the Web makes its way even further into the fabric of things like television and appliances to where the average Joe is more exposed to it we may not gain that user base. As media center PC’s and home automation become more prevalent people will be forced to become more reliant on technology and become better users of it. It’s at this point I think people will slow down a bit to look around. If not maybe the technology will relieve the time stress that we put on our lives.
A Quick Introduction
Being that this is my first post on Wisdump and most of you are going to notice a different writing style then that of Scrivs, Ryan, and Lee I figured some sort of introduction would be appropriate.
My name is Kyle P. Johnson a writer and developer from the Omaha area. I have been working in the Web industry for nearly 7 years on a number of different projects and with a number of different companies. I have been writing on my personal blog for about 3 years before Lee gave me the opportunity to write for him and Wisdump.
I hope that you all can appreciate my writing and writing style, and although I am definitely not Scrivs hopefully my writing will strike a chord with the reader base that has decided to stick it out.
Originally posted on May 26, 2007 @ 12:52 pm