In the era of mobile, the web will live on

[Commentary] Chris Dixon, one of my favorite writers and investors, wrote a piece on what he sees as the inevitable decline of the web as the world transitions to mobile computing.

The thesis is simple -- mobile is dominating, and apps dominate mobile. Ergo, the web is dead. However, Chris misses a critical distinction that must be made to understand the future (or possible non-future) of the web. 'the web' heretofore has meant two things:

1. A distributed platform for publishing content globally
2. A frictionless delivery system for Internet-enabled software

Unfortunately, these two things are often conflated, which has led to countless confused conversations. Clearly, mobile will be the dominant medium for computing. Rich native mobile apps provide a significantly better customer experience over web apps loaded via a mobile browser. For this reason, Internet- enabled software will transition primarily to mobile apps.

However, that doesn't mean mobile apps will displace the web as the world's primary publishing platform. More devices and more users will only drive demand for more and better content. Content will continue to be primarily published via the web.

[Rosen is co-founder and CEO of Pantheon, a San Francisco-based professional website platform for developers, marketers, and IT users]