Simple browser innovation…

Remove the HTTP, and have it be a drop down (which the ability to add customized options). This simple change would eliminate the need to type http://. Now if you clicked on a link it would automatically change to reflect where you were. (ie: HTTPS://). But if you wanted to go to FTP. You could select “FTP” from the drop down and then type 360conferences.com

“www”

Yes, why we picked three of the longest letters to pronounce in any fashion. And how to ever change it.

I’d like to see a proposal for the simple alternative…

web.yahoo.com

And to somehow make it an infrastructure level change so that web. & www. would be synonymous. And even allow “yahoo.com” to simply be “silent web”. Where as all other subdomains would require typing mail.yahoo.com, movies.yahoo.com, etc.

But this has to be done seamless to the common user. But likewise. I think this could be incorporated in a browser design.

In fact, I did a little back end site for my mother-in-law and she was having problems. It wasn’t maintaining her “session”. I finally realized she wasn’t entering the domain in the URL bar but in the search and without the www. prefix. Well, the host server wasn’t setup to equate domain.com the same as http://www.domain.com.

““Call mom” into the phone and it would automatically connect you with your mom and they would’ve said, “You’re crazy.””

My father used to caution on the danger of this (ie: when lack of phone exists), or of the guy standing at the pay phone saying “Call mom!” and nothing happens. Of course, one is now hard pressed to find a pay phone anymore. (What an interesting twist the future delivered.) *lol*

When I watch non-technical users browse the internet, I see one common behavior. They all have a search page as their home page. They all type *everything* in the search box.

If you tell them to search for something, the enter it in the search box of the page. If you tell them to enter a URL (even if you describe the location of the URL field in the browser), then enter it in the search box of the page.

What is interesting about this is that it works the vast majority of the time.

-danny

Interesting sidenote too, many AOL converts were used to the keyword concept. In early AOL, and possibly still, there was an area where you typed a keyword and AOL took you to whoever bought that keyword. It trained people to enter things in the “box” on the screen.

Flash forward to the internet sans AOL walls, i.e. just a browser. Many of those AOLers didn’t even realize there was a URL bar. Many of them type the url into the search box of whatever their default search homepage was.

@Art I agree.

Funny story about addresses too. In Florence, Italy there is this famous Gelato Vendor named Vivoli. Taped to the wall is a postcard bearing only “Vivoli, Europa” for the address, yet it was successfully delivered.

Granted, I doubt we’re all that popular, but still. Pretty neat.

BTW, speaking of mail — why do we even need addresses? You should be able to send me a letter or package by just writing “93953-1747″, which is my Zip+4.

I just tried that by opening a new tab and typing “tom ortega” and it took me straight to this blog, bypassing the search page altogether. This saves me loads of milliseconds in FireFox cause I can literally just type “[Ctrl-T] tom ortega [Enter]” and I get a new tab with your blog.