Where Intellect Meets the Internet
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At Internet Evolution we believe that the next huge leap forward in the history of the Internet is happening now – and the goal of our site is to gauge its likely impact on every aspect of life as we know it.
It's obvious that something big is happening in terms of Internet usage: More than 1.1 billion people around the world now use the Internet... Usage is growing at 18 percent per year*... And in 2006 total digital content exceeded 160 exabytes – enough to fill 161 billion iPod shuffles.**
But the Internet is at a tipping point, not just in terms of the number of people using it, but also in terms of how they use it.
Over the last 30 or so years the communications industry has collaborated, often unwittingly, in developing the Internet that we have today – a low-cost, ubiquitous, multimedia network capable of carrying any type of traffic (voice, video, or data) anywhere, anytime. And that network is here, now.
So the BIG questions now are not about the network itself (been there, built that) but about how the network will be used.
That trend is evident in terms of the new focus from both the industry and its customers on services and applications, on things like overcoming the challenges of searching and making sense of this vast amount of Internet information – including machine-capable search, or the semantic Web, as it's been called.
We also see a big change in people's expectations of what the Internet can achieve. It's becoming obvious that the Internet isn't just a new and better method of business communications (a cheaper, fancier telephone for the 21st Century, as it were). Beyond presenting huge opportunities for companies to invent new businesses and improve the ways they run their old businesses, there is a growing consensus – both inside and outside the industry – that the Net has a much wider and more important role to play in improving the quality of life for the world's population.
Examples include using videoconferencing to reduce the amount of business travel and thus aid with the problem of reducing carbon emmissions; addressing the poverty gap between industrialized nations and the developing world, through things like micro-loans... and, of course, how we live our lives: the ways we educate ourselves and our children, the ways we experience entertainment, how we meet and bond with like-minded spirits.
And these are the kinds of topics that we'll be examining closely in Internet Evolution, in two ways.
First, through a series of investigative reports on the most important issues relating to the future of the Internet. Click here to see our editorial calendar
And second, through the ThinkerNet – an interactive forum where an invited assemblage of the Internet's leading minds blog and exchange opinions, while interacting with our audience via message boards. Click here to view our "virtual masthead," or click here to email us about joining the ThinkerNet as a contributor.
One more thing...
Even by the standards of such an exciting and influential technology, the Internet has attracted more than its share of fluffers, bluffers, and blowhards – often pursuing a thinly veiled M&A or IPO agenda. Our goal is to provide an antidote to the illogical boosterism that has always gone hand in hand with the Internet (often with disastrous results).
At Internet Evolution we're aiming to view the future of the Internet through a prism of pragmatism – acting as an anti-bubble that eliminates hype, cuts through the "conventional wisdom," and provides an overdue dose of realism about where the Internet is headed.
We welcome your input and opinions. Send them to editors@internetevolution.com
