By Ian Jepp
I recently took my daughter to the Science Museum in London for a day out. She and I discovered more about the Industrial Revolution and I marvelled at the steam engines and beam engines as I had done when I first visited the building when just a child myself.
I was thoroughly enjoying my day with her until, that is, we got to the area of the museum dedicated to ‘communications’. There were displays of old telephone exchanges with plugboards, which you only see today in films. Then there were CB radios and early mobile phones the size of bricks.
A few steps along the displays we came upon some original home computers and games consoles and everything started to feel very familiar. There was the same computer I’d completed my college work on and, behind the glass, were mobile phones which I clearly remembered owning. I suddenly felt very old. If I paused too long, would stewards at the museum push me into a cabinet?
What really struck me was the sheer pace of change. Look at a motor car, in many ways that hasn’t changed a great deal since it was first launched, with years between new innovations, such as the turbo. Even now a manual car has the pedals in the same configuration.
If you took somebody from the 1930s and sat them in a typical family car from today, they’d probably work out how to drive it in a fairly short amount of time. Hand them a mobile phone or tablet and I think they’d be mystified.
The IT and communications equipment we use today, which seems so up-to-date, will look old fashioned and probably be obsolete in a matter of a few years.
I guess, apart from feeling older than when I entered the Science Museum, the trip reminded me that we can’t afford to sit still, particularly when it comes to web development. Here at Lake Solutions, we make it a priority to keep up to date with new developments in websites and we share that knowledge with our clients.
This year marked the 30th anniversary of the first website – a single page developed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee which looks nothing like the websites we recognise today. That said, I clearly remember the evolution of web technology.
I think it’s a reminder that websites are not static things. Not long ago, web developers would create a website for a client which represented little more than a digital company brochure. As time’s moved on, it’s become apparent that websites don’t benefit from being static, certainly when it comes to SEO - Google loves websites with regularly updated and relevant content.
Of course, the technology behind websites is also changing all the time and you can be sure we’re keeping our eye on those developments. If your website project stands still, you don’t want to find it behind glass in a museum.
If you’d like to keep up with the times when it comes to websites, then give our team at Lake Solutions a call on tel: 020 3397 3222.