
I think the web production market is changing, possibly bifurcating. By "web production market" I mean everything that goes into "what goes into what you see in your browser window". I think there's always been differences in this market and only recently started seeing what I'll call a true "bifurcation".
I think the advent of portals and microsites within portals is going to necessitate a change in that market. It's one thing to have your professionally designed site look like another site when you can't see the two of them side by side in your browser. When you can, the similarities will be a bit more obvious and that means companies are going to demand greater differentiation in site branding (as I wrote in Usability Studies 101: Brand Loyalty).
What I think is happening is different. If not exactly "different" then perhaps an example of chunking as used in psycho- and neuro-linguistics; applying different scales to a thing so that symmetries and similarities emerge (I often think of chunking as the linguistic version of fractals).
I do think the webpage as we've known it has started its long tail phase. As I wrote in The BFF, emerging technologies -- whether they're what we're seeing today or whatever else the "next big thing" is -- will push the webpage further and further away until it either evolves or dies.
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