Jonathan Stark argues that the desktop browser is dying as mobile becomes the dominant computing platform. While general purpose browsers still exist on mobile, most popular mobile apps have specialized browsers optimized for specific uses and content. As the web expands into new devices, contexts and the physical world, web designers and developers will need to specialize their skills in areas like responsive design, user experience design, content management, and vertical markets like helping dentists or retailers. Specializing allows one to become a recognized expert rather than compete on price against large firms.

1. T H E B R O W S E R I S D E A D
L O N G L I V E T H E W E B !
J O N A T H A N S TA R K . C O M
In spite of my gloomy title, I promise this talk has happy ending.
W H O A M I ?
• Consultant
• Author
• Developer
• CTO
• Speaker
• Coach
• I help companies like CVS, Staples, Nokia, Intel make the leap to mobile.
• I've written three books on mobile and web development, most notably "Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript" which has
been translated in to 7 languages.
• I do a few dev projects every year to make sure my consulting advice stays fresh. Most recently I did the javascript for responsive redesigns
of EW, Techcrunch, and some parts of Time Inc. In the fall of 2014, co-developed a Rails app called Castbacker which is a crowdfunding
platform for podcasters.
• CTO of a bootstrapped SaaS startup called StickyAlbums that helps photographers market themselves with responsive HTML5 web apps.
• Business coaching for software developers to help them attract bigger clients, increase their profits, create recurring revenue, etc.
M O B I L E I S H U G E
1. There are roughly 2B smartphones in use globally, and only 1.6B desktop machines.
2. In the next five years, the number of smartphones will double to 4B.
3. This means that 80% of adults worldwide will have a connected supercomputer in their pocket by 2020.
4. And that's just units. If you then multiply by the usage numbers of desktop vs mobile, it's clear that mobile will be the dominant computing
platform by a factor of about 10.

2. D E S K T O P I S D E A D
So what's really going on here is that desktop is really the thing that's dying...
B R O W S E R I S C A S U A LT Y
... browsers are merely a casualty.
why? because the core browser UI was created for a desktop class machine
Imagine the UI of your favorite mobile browser. I'm willing to bet it has all the same core stuff as netscape navigator (over 20 years old!)
address bar
back forward buttons
new window/tab button
page loading progress indicator
history
bookmarks
cookies

3. S H O E H O R N I N G
As we all know, shoehorning a desktop UI down for small touchscreen devices doesn't work that great. And the general purpose web browser
is a desktop UI for a desktop activity. Think about your web activity on mobile. If you're like me, a link is presented to you (as the result of a
search, a feed, a message, etc), you click on it, you read it for a minute or two (or less) and you close the browser and go back to what you
were doing.
M O B I L E I S D I F F E R E N T
Mobile is different. We need a different interaction model for the web on mobile.
FA C E B O O K , E T A L
And guess what? We got it! It's hard to name a popular mobile app that doesn't have the web baked into it:
facebook, twitter, linkedin, youtube, amazon, tumblr, pintrest, etc.
[STORY: TESTING IN FACEBOOK]
In a sense, you can see these apps as special purpose web browsers optimized for a particular use case, user context, or content type. They
do have some strong similarities to a gp browser:
* Pull structured data over the network just like a regular browser
* Can load URLs just like a regular browser
* They can render HTML/CSS/JS just like a regular browser

4. T H AT S A I D . . .
On the other hand, there are a lot of things these special purpose browsers may or may not have:
address bar, back/forward buttons, bookmarks, history, cookies, and so on.
[STORY: SHARING MENU VS BUTTONS]
O U T S I D E T H E B R O W S E R
T H I N K
What does this mean for us? It means we have to think outside the browser.
I N Y O U R M O B I L E O S !
W E B I S
If you think that sounds impossible to deal with, dig this: it gets even weirder...
Our web "stuff" is breaking out any native apps and bleeding up into the mobile OS itself:
* Push notifications on iOS and Android
* iOS notification center widgets
* Android homescreen widgets
* Siri
* Google Now
* Moto Hint

5. O N Y O U R W R I S T !
W E B I S
But wait! There's more!
Set top boxes and smart watches are catching on fast:
* Apple TV - 20 million sold
* Roku - 10 million sold
* Chromecast - 14 million sold
* Apple Watch - 1 million sold (first weekend!)
* Pebble - over 1 million sold
These devices are as different from mobile as mobile is from desktop. They demand a completely different interaction models but still want our
juicy web content and services.
I N Y O U R T H I N G S !
W E B I S
And I won't even mention:
* Amazon Echo
* Dash Replenishment Services
* iBeacons
* AR/VR Goggles
* Physical Web
W H AT D O W E D O ?
S O . . .
As general purpose browsers become more and more marginalized and our domain space continues to expand to the physical world, we have
no choice but to specialize. Certain web design and development skills come to mind immediately that will continue to be valuable in a broad
range of new situations.

6. T Y P O G R A P H Y, R W D , U X
D E S I G N
Typography - Type is the primary design element of the Web (and many other mediums).
RWD - Responsive Wed design allows us to organize content in a way that will format itself appropriately to it's context. As platform and
device fragmentation continue to rise, RWD will become more important.
UX - The line between cyberspace and meatspace is getting blurrier every day. Digital experiences are starting to combine with physical
objects. Designing cross-device and cross-mode experiences is brand new territory so we need lots and lots of input from end users while
we stumble toward some early best practices. This will be a decades long process.
J AVA S C R I P T, C M S , R E S T
D E V E L O P M E N T
JavaScript - Atwood's law is coming true: "Anything that can be written in JavaScript, will be written in JavaScript". Simply put, javascript is
everywhere - if you are good at it, you will be in demand.
Content Management Systems (i.e., CMS) - Our popular CMSs are not really for managing content - they're for publishing web pages (and
often desktop-specific pages at that). As such, they're commonly polluted with context specific layout instructions (e.g., BR tags). We need
systems, processes, and workflows that are truly content centric and agnostic of output context (e.g., desktop web browser, native iOS app,
track info in iTunes, eInk display on a smartwatch, LCD screen on a car stereo, etc).
Web Services (e.g., REST, SOAP, XML-RPC, etc) - Mobile has created a "real time, all the time, from anywhere, on anything" expectation in
end users. This kind of experience is impossible to provide when your organization is full of silo'd information. Providing self-service APIs
over the network is the best way to break down those silos. That said, it's a lot of work when you really do it right: security, throttling,
monitoring, caching, paging, testing, documentation, versioning... the list goes on and on.
R A I L S F O R D E N T I S T S
V E R T I C A L S P E C I A L I Z A T I O N
* I’m a Rails developer who helps dentists with older patients who forget appointments. Unlike my competitors, I use SMS reminders which
work on both smart phones and dumb phones.
* I’m a Web designer who helps Fortune 500 retailers with abandoned shopping carts on their e-commerce sites. Unlike my competitors, I use
A/B tests to focus on the bottom line instead of wasting time with arbitrary design changes.
* I'm a graphic designers who helps podcasters stand out from the crowd with a unique logo and gorgeous artwork. Unlike my competitors, I
only work with podcasters so I know the exact specs for every podcast directory and podcaster app.

7. N O E S ! ! !
B U T
In my work as a coach, I know that web designers and developers recoil at the notion of specializing. They fear that they'll be:
* Turning away desirable clients
* Bored by the narrow focus
* Revealed as "not really an expert" (i.e., imposter syndrome)
But as distasteful as specializing may seem, ask yourself this: would you rather be a recognized expert or compete for jobs with oDesk,
99designs, and Fiverr?
– G E N E R A L D O U G L A S M A C A R T H U R
“There is no security on this earth,
there is only opportunity.”
There's never been a better time to be working on the web. The pace of change can be intimidating but the opportunities are just going to keep
getting bigger. We've barely scratched the surface of what's possible. Buckle up! It's going to be a crazy ride :)
There's never been more opportunity for creatives than there is right now. But you have to be willing to embrace change, let go of religious
dogma, and refuse to rest on your laurels. Go deep, break new ground, become an world class expert in your niche.
Q U E S T I O N S ?
J O N A T H A N S TA R K . C O M / A S K
Links referenced in the talk...
StickyAlbums:
https://www.stickyalbums.com/
Business coaching for dev shops:
http://expensiveproblem.com/
Ask me anything:
https://jonathanstark.com/ask
The Birth and Death of Javascript (c compiler written in javascript)
https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript