The 21st century is the ‘Age of Innovation’ as most visionaries like to call it. Our generation is mostly focused on improving and changing current trends and technologies rather than building new ones right from scratch. And, as far as digital revolutions are concerned, no other technology is doing this better than blockchain.
Blockchain is an approach that has a wide range of applications and has found its home in the unlikeliest of places. What started out as an architecture of decentralized cryptocurrencies is now making its way through most of the technological fields, changing them for the better as it goes. These include IoT, healthcare, contracting, data storage and management, and many others.
Despite this, web development is one technology that hasn’t seen too many upgrades yet. And, the interesting part isthat blockchain is a strong derivative of web technologies itself. One might think that blockchain may not actually be capable of innovating the field of web development. Fortunately, if you are one of these professionals, your beliefis far from the truth.
Blockchain – Web Development: A Combination for the Future
There are several ways in which blockchain can influence current web development technologies. Let’s take a few minutes to discuss how a full stack developer can learn blockchain to design and create next generation smart websites.
Back-End and Data Source
Blockchain is a cryptographically encoded, decentralized digital ledger system. Unlike legacy file management and storage systems which have a central server holding all the data, blockchain uses a decentralized approach. Basically, the idea is to store all the data present in a blockchain throughout all the nodes in the network. This is an excellent approach as it expunges any possibility of downtime and the overall efficiency and reliability of the system increases.
Using this same feature of blockchain, the data source and the backend of a website can be built. Unlike current generation websites, these chunks of web pages will have lower latency and no downtime at all. Add on the fact that this data is completely secured using cryptography, websites will become more resilient towards hackers. Right now, most websites are vulnerable to security concerns as all the data is stored in a master server. Any security breach could lead to severe issues, going as far as compromising the website and its owners completely. Use of blockchain fixes all this and makes for a more secure and private system.
Further, a database based on blockchain is quite flexible. It can be shared with devices which are not on your network, as well. Everipedia is an online encyclopedia that is trying to implement this architecture into their website.
Front-End and Marketing
While blockchain is not really meant for UI and front-end development, it can vastly influence the user-experience by changing the way a user interacts with the website and its components. Using techniques currently employed in smart contracting, the overall web design for each user can be altered based on their activities over the internet. These could include their likes and dislikes, the websites they usually spend most time on etc.
Using blockchain we can devise interactive designs for smart websites that can change on the fly. Instead of having static web pages that are the same to everyone, why not get a curated web page that uniquely suits you and your needs. If you have a keen eye, you can see a part of this currently being executed in advertisements. Google AdWords shows you ads of websites that you have recently visited or spend most time on. Taking this to a whole new level by changing the web page itself could redefine web browsing completely.
It is quite interesting that everything has become quite proprietary. In fact, there is nothing uniquely yours anymore as all the data you consume or create is constantly being shared all over the web. Smart websites that change themselves to fit your likes could be the next big thing in digital marketing.
Although, this approach seems a bit too farfetched now, blockchain is completely capable of handling datasets like these. It might take a few years for it to become practical, but interactive web browsing surely seems like a viable path for websites to move towards.
Transaction Systems and Ad Revenue
E-Commerce websites and most websites that require any kinds of transactions currently employ third-party gateways to take care of this exchange of money. While this approach is quite simple and easy to maintain, it has a few drawbacks.
• The gateways usually take a small fee for every transaction which can add up to become significant if you have a large user-base.
• If there is an issue with the gateway, your transactions could be affected for a good while without any backup unless you employ multiple gateways.
Using blockchain for these transaction systems can eliminate any downtimes as the system is completely decentralized. The transactions will happen between only the concerned people and be completed after a consensus is achieved in the network. You also don’t have to worry about transaction fee and other taxes as most blockchain transactions are completely free.
Adding on the fact that blockchain is the most secure system to ever be introduced in the IT industry, you can rest assured that all your hard-earned economy is safe.
When it comes to ad revenue, websites currently rely completely on systems like Google AdWords. While that’s very convenient, the revenue generation models are quite hectic to deal with and the overall profits you get from them are severely low. Using blockchain for a proprietary ad display system will not only help you earn much better from ad revenue, it will also make sure the ads displayed have a better click-rate.
Blockchain and web development are a very likely combination. If you are a web developer, you should surely consider learning blockchain and if you don’t already have the necessary skills, why not become a certified full stack developer this year and then pursue blockchain?
While this combination may require sometime to really take off, it is quite inevitable. Most technologies are moving towards smart decentralized solutions using blockchain and other similar technologies. Seeing the huge number of perks blockchain brings in tow and the fact that this combo is still in its infantile stage, why don’t you become one of the first few people to innovate web technologies with blockchain?
