Why should the Web adapt?
Large web services contain vast amounts of information on many different, often irrelevant topics. Their organisation and presentation is optimised for an average user, based on the experience and thougthfulness of their designers. It is quite a challenge to determine the average users and design a web service, which they would be fond of. Satisfying all the rest, who do not fit the mold, is practically impossible with today's constant structured web sites. That is why the idea of building web sites, which adapt to users' needs, intoduced by Perkovitz and Etzioni in 1997, seems so promising and, in a way, revolutionary. It means letting people decide for themselves how they want the site to be organized and presented, without asking them directly. Data gathered by server each time a site is accessed contains so much interesting information, it would be a shame not to make use of it. Users' browsing habitts and interest can be derived and conclusions can be drawn automatically, thus enabling the service to adapt to users' needs. In nature it is either adapt or become extinct. Perhaps the same will go for web services in the near future. After all the virtual world is not less competitive than real one.
