Recall the web of the mid to late 90′s: few images, largely informational, and e-commerce was just starting to take off as more and more users joined this new informational network called the Internet. Then, throughout the 2000′s, Web 2.0 placed a name on a collection of design patterns to move the web to a more graphical and dynamic JavaScript-based user experience.

As the web continues to evolve, however, we see a new type of design pattern cause the Web to further evolve – something we’ve covered here under a new name: web darwinism.

The Concept

The whole “web darwinism” thing is just a name for something the Web is doing, and that is moving to a simpler design while maintaining maximum user interactivity.

Long-established websites like Facebook are starting to become more stripped-down and simplistic in their design and user interface, without deterring away from user interactivity. One can’t help but to observe that the redesigning of these sites to this new form follows the newfound popularity of sites like Twitter and Plurk, whom have implemented this style since their inception.

Sites like Wikipedia, Myspace, and blogs like us will always have their place, but as far as general user popularity and numbers go, Twitter, Plurk and Facebook will always come out on top as far as satisfying the attention-deficit nature of the Web’s population.

The History

When Twitter was first started, the early followers of the service were unsure of its future, and there’s a reason:

The users of the Internet (at the time) were not quite as on-demand as they have become now.

Fast forward a few years later, and the Internet has evolved along with the world around it (or should I say the world around the Internet) to become more dynamic, causing more users to become used to short and quick informational or entertaining snippets.

Google’s homepage has always employed this: a single image, a search bar, and two buttons. Most users quickly overlook the links at the top and bottom of the page, but most don’t have to: they’re there to type some words into the magic text-box, and shortly thereafter fine what they’re looking for.

It must work and satisfy its users, because Ask.com, Bing.com (formerly Live and MSN Search) all employ the same tactic.

But these search engine websites all simply helped set the tone further established by the current micro-blogging and social networking webspheres: users like short, sweet, and simple websites that do what they need them to do, and fast.

Ashton Kutcher is quickly approaching 2,000,000 followers on Twitter, if that puts things into perspective for you.

The Future

The Web is anything but done growing. As long as the human population continues to grow, more and more will further scale the Internet’s hardware, software (think: cloud computing), and designers will continue to scale down their designs appropriately to further help the Web meet the demands of its users.

I would not have imagined that the web would be like this back in 1998. A group of websites giving you just over 100 characters to sum up what you’re doing just sounds ridiculous until you see it in action with a community and other low-key supportive features.

But what will the Web be like in another 5 years? At the moment, it seems like it just can’t get any simpler – but just wait. As netbooks make the client simpler, and cloud services make the servers more robust (nevermind Opera Unity), the Internet is sure to continue to evolve heavily in the same direction over the next 5-10 years.