In 1993, AT&T ran a series of ads, voiced by Tom Selleck.  They were AT&T’s attempt at showing what the future would be like.

Well, now it is nearly twenty years later.  Granted, AT&T service is not available in the UK, but let’s see what we have that AT&T predicted:

Have you ever borrowed a book from thousands of miles away? - Actually, yes. My University uses Athens as part of its online Library resources.  My local library also offers some books in a downloadable format.  Also … Amazon Kindle, anyone?

Crossed the country without stopping for directions? - Are there any cars or drivers these days that don’t use GPS?  Thank you, TomTom.

Sent someone a fax from the beach? - Sure. eFax does that. Also, email is technically an electronic fax, and they can be sent from your phone.

Paid a toll without slowing down? Not in the UK, but I know that there are toll booths in Istanbul that do just that. There is a radio transmitter that you credit with money and tolls are deducted each time. Or there is a bill you are sent. I don’t know how it works, but you don’t have to slow down. (Thank you, Gizem for showing me all about that)

Bought concert tickets from a cash machine? – Hmmmmm … that’s a tricky one.  Touch screen panels that accept debit / credit cards, yes.  Websites that sell concert tickets (Ticketmaster, etc.), yes.   Explicitly from a cash machine? Not yet.  But I have added credit to my phone from one.

Tucked your baby in from a phone booth? – Again, tricky.  I’m yet to see video phone booths. Video mobiles, yes. Skype, yes. But not a video phone booth.  I guess the others do count in this case. (Video telephony and all)

Opened doors with the sound of your voice? - Ok, you got me there.  I don’t know anyone that provides that, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Carried your medical history in your wallet? - Again, you got me there, but I would think that it is possible.  One medical practice in the UK has made all of its medical records available online for its patients.  It is only a matter of time before all surgeries follow suit and some kind of smart card is designed. But as yet, nothing.

Attended a meeting in your bare feet? - Skype, anyone?  Even (dare I say it) AOL?

Watch the movie you wanted to, the minute you to? - Netflix and Lovefilm offer that.

Learn special things from faraway places? - Again, Skype. Also, podcasting.  Google Hangouts, too.

Tucked your baby in from a phone booth? - Wait, we’ve just done that one …

So that’s the list.  We’re down by two, but the rest we have.  But wait … they always say that AT&T will bring them to us … hmmmm …

According to http://www.urlesque.com/2011/01/03/predictions-att-1993-commercials/, AT&T have only provided GPS, Faxes from the beach, video chat and meetings in your bare feet, and even that was a prototype only.  So out of their 11 predictions, we have 9, and 4 of them were adopted by AT&T, 2 of them were eventually adopted (GPS and video chat), one was a prototype and one (faxing) was via a third party (Bellsouth).  So not only did AT&T not bring any of them to us, the ones that they do offer us, they merely tagged along for the ride.

Although, give them credit, this was in 1993. We were told that we’d have the hoverboard in 2015 and we’ve only got three years for that (although, we are making steps in the right direction – http://www.pcworld.com/article/197371/hoverboard_project_takes_flightand_actually_hovers.html).  Self tying laces are on the way, however.  We have them in prototype.

A rather sombre post today.  Yet, as equally random as my post about websites and beans.

Today is the birthday of a very dear friend of mine.  She died early in 2009, around February.  Actually, she died months before Gizem and I ever started dating, now I think about it.  That point is completely unrelated, but still one I never realised.  Heh … Anyways, she is no longer with us.  I still miss her, I still think of her, I still wonder how life would be different if she was here, but destiny was cruel and took her.  But today is her birthday, normally a celebration of joy, but, no doubt for her family, a day of rememberance.  And what did I do to show she was still on my mind?

I posted a message to her Facebook profile.

Yes, Facebook reminded me of her birthday and I posted a message on her wall.  I mean, you *do* get high speed broadband and 3G (4G, even?) mobile communications when you cross over, right? Right?  Please tell me you do, I’ll be devestated otherwise.  It’s amazing, however, that some habits still remain when others have gone.  Posting “Happy Birthday” messages on Facebook.  Keeping phone numbers “just in case”.  Visiting places as a pilgrimage (that’s my plan, to make yearly visits to Birmingham Christmas Market).  It does make me chuckle.  Quietly.

Happy Birthday, dear friend.  You are never forgotten. Even if Facebook now has to remind me when you would usually grow older.

Oh wow, do I come out with some random things sometimes.  Like the time I once asked my fiancee about the Turkish language.  French and Spanish, for example, have masculine and feminine words in their vocabulary, but Turkish and Chinese don’t.  Their word for “he” is the same as the word for “she” and the word for “it”. No gender differentiation whatsoever.  So my thought on that?  ”Turkish language is a hermaphrodite.”  I kid you not.  So what is today’s little hint of randomness?

Websites are just like tins of baked beans.

Hear me out on this one, I’m sure some designers have come out with something similar.

Basic one page sites

Basic, one page, HTML sites are your Smart Price or Value tins – just plain and simple beans, nothing special about them whatsoever.  You can add anything you want to it yourself and you can dress them up however you want, but it is still just your basic baked beans.  Likewise, a one page website can be dressed up and have all sorts of transitions and Javascripts and embedded YouTube videos and whatever you want in it, but it is still just a basic, one page, HTML website.  For some clients and for some designers, that’s enough.  For some students, Smart Price beans are enough.  I’m not knocking the sites, don’t get me wrong, it’s just … nothing technically special or robust.

Multi-page / non-HTML websites

Multi-page sites or PHP driven sites are like your Heinz tins that are fortified with iron and vitamins or with reduced salt or even with a sauce that isn’t just tomato sauce (you might have smokey BBQ sauce, for example) – you add little extra bits to it, but at the end of it, no matter how you dress it up, it is still just a tin of beans, still nothing special about them whatsoever. Likewise, your website can be in PHP, have multiple pages and can have forms, groups, anything.  It is still just a website, only slightly more technical.

Content managed (CMS) websites

A CMS driven site is your tin of baked beans and sausage – it’s no longer just a tin of beans, you’ve added sausages into it, you’ve added an extra ingredient to it, you’ve changed the product completely.  To some people, it’s a full meal, but it is still basically a tin of beans. Just with sausages in it.  A CMS driven website is the same: it’s a website, but with an administration panel attached.  Whether it’s WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, phpBB (yes, even message boards manage content) or your own system, you’ve added that extra product to it, that extra side to it.

(images sourced from British Online Goodies – http://www.britishonlinegoodies.com/)

Yes, it is random.  But, to me, it works.  And, just like all award winning random thoughts, it came to me in the shower.  But what do you think?  Have you used any other analogies?  Have you got a better analogy?  Do you not believe that, even in its simplest form, that websites and design can not be constrained by analogies like this?  Let me know in the comments below.  In the meantime, I fancy some beans on toast.

A couple of days ago, Mashable posted this link: http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/dad-shoots-laptop-facebook/.  The article is about a guy, a father of a 15 year old girl.  His daughter posted a typical teenage  angst post to her friends, complaining about how her parents made her do everything and wouldn’t give her her own way, blah blah blah.  Her father saw this (apparently, it was the second time he has seen this kind of post) and, after punishing her the first time, decided to publicly humiliate her.  He took his gun, her laptop, a chair and a video camera, and recorded himself giving a monologue to camera in the middle of a field, answering her post to camera, then shooting her laptop, before posting the video onto YouTube.

Within two days, his video went from 5,000 hits to 15 million.  He has had numerous media requests (which no doubt will not die down for a couple of weeks) and has made many posts on the subject.  Mashable then released this article just a few hours ago: http://mashable.com/2012/02/11/dad-addresses-facebook-laptop-shooting/.  They have a slideshow of images on there, all of posts that have been made by the father.  But the last post struck me the hardest.

What about all of the information we post?  This guy posted the video and received 15,000,000 views, plus numerous offers of talk shows and interviews, but the damage that video can cause could be more dangerous than he may realise, and he has to live with the ramifications and the consequences of that video forever.  So what about our posts?  What about our content?  Our videos, our comments, our statuses, our tweets, photos … we have to live with those.  Who knows what can happen because of that.  One tweet that is mistimed or misinterpreted or blown out of all proportions could cause a lot of damage to us.  Sometimes, it is only intended as a rant (take the guy who was arrested for tweeting about his flight being cancelled due to snow, for example), but it can cause serious problems.

I guess what I am getting at is we need to watch what we post online.  People can see our posts and the trouble we can get into from them sometimes is just not worth it.