A Wired magazine cover story announcing that "The Web is Dead" naturally generated frenzied pushback, over the week. The article, by Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff, puts forth the argument that "semi-closed" Internet platforms and services, such as apps, inevitably are overtaking the open, browser-based World Wide Web. While the web at one time was the Internet's star attraction, it is now just one application among many, the authors write.

The notion that more and more people are using apps is not exactly new, as GigaOm's Mathew Ingram points out. The roaring success of the iPhone and its app store have driven the Internet's evolution toward meeting specific needs with specific applications. However, it's hard to say what the next big thing will be. And with HTML5, developers could develop websites that look and behave like apps, he argues.

According to Rob Beschizza at BoingBoing, who looked at the data presented in the Wired article from a different angle, the use of the browser-based web is, in fact, still growing. A chart included with the article shows web traffic declining as a percentage of total U.S. Internet traffic. But if you look at the growth of actual traffic, he notes, there is substantial growth in all aspects of Internet use, including the web.

Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic takes issue with Wired's premise that one successful new technology inevitably destroys an older one. Citing scholars, Madrigal makes the point that new and old technologies often work side-by-side. Technological progress is not deterministic, but rather shaped by personal choices and social influences, he argues.

Noting that Wired had pronounced the browser dead back in 1997, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch takes the magazine to the mat for jumping to conclusions. While apps work well for smartphones with small screens, they aren't necessarily the choice for people using larger mobile devices, such as the iPad. One example Arrington gives is that the Facebook iPad "app" is accessed not from an app store but via a browser. He predicts that eventually people will want less software on their mobile phones as well.

One thing pretty much everyone agrees on, Wired gets kudos for the provocative headline. It's own website, over the past week, was very much alive.

For more:
- see Anderson and Wolff's article at Wired
- see Mathew Ingram's post at GigaOm
- see Rob Beschizza's post at BoingBoing
- see Alexix Madrigal's article at The Atlantic
- see Michael Arrington's post at TechCrunch

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