{"id":43731,"date":"2014-04-08T09:34:36","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T16:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ma.tt\/?p=43731"},"modified":"2014-04-22T22:17:32","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T05:17:32","slug":"the-web-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ma.tt\/2014\/04\/the-web-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Web Still Matters for Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wanted to share unique perspective for why the web matters in an app world with a guest post from Stratechery writer Ben Thompson<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

This week Twitter was abuzz with the most recent report<\/a> from Flurry that showed people spending most of their time on mobile using apps, not the browser:<\/p>\n

\"Time<\/a><\/p>\n

Many were quick to once again declare \u201cThe Web is Dead,\u201d but I\u2019m not sure that conclusion makes sense, at least for writing.<\/p>\n

First off, Flurry\u2019s numbers don\u2019t account for webviews within mobile apps. On my site, Stratechery, 37% of my iOS traffic comes from webviews (Android doesn\u2019t break out the difference), which on Flurry\u2019s chart would fall mostly in the Twitter slice. More mass market sites likely take up some percentage of Facebook time, as well.<\/p>\n

That said, it\u2019s striking how little written content appears on Flurry\u2019s chart; the only category that is primarily about written content is news, and even that includes video. And yet, pageviews on WordPress.com and Jetpack are up<\/em> 27% year-over-year, new sites ranging from small blogs like Stratechery to huge sites like FiveThirtyEight<\/a> continue to launch and grow, and multiple startups (and competitors!) continue to find writing something worth investing in.<\/p>\n

So is the web dead or not?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so, for a few reasons:<\/p>\n