インターネット：中、またはメッセージが表示さ
の状態を、ネット 中間報告書については、将来のインターネット whoは、 whoを構成するインターネットの参加者ですか？ ユーザー-n etとの対話に接続していること
の通信回線や通信機器
の仲介（例えば、ライン上の納入業者の情報やアクセスプロバイダー）です。
ハードウェアメーカー
ソフトウェアの作家やメーカー（ブラウザ、サイトの開発ツールは、特定のアプリケーションでは、スマートエージェントは、検索エンジンやその他） 。
" hitchhikers " （検索エンジン、スマートエージェント、人工知能-愛-ツールと続き）
コンテンツ制作者やプロバイダ
納入業者の財力（現在-企業や機関の広告に置き換えられて現金が徐々にお金）
これらのコンポーネントのそれぞれの運命を-とは別に連帯-は、インターネットの運命を決定する。
第一段階は、インターネットの歴史のウィザードは、コンピュータに支配されています。 したがって、その将来を予測する試みは主に、ハードウェアとソフトウェアのコンポーネントです。
メディアの専門家、社会学者、心理学者、広告およびマーケティングの幹部が総力を挙げて置いていかれて将来の顔を確認するには、インターネットです。
コンテンツが懸念限り、現在のところ、インターネットすることはできません媒体として定義されています。 1つとして機能することはありません-むしろそれは非常に無秩序なライブラリは、ほとんどの文章を組み込んだ非m egalomaniacs識別します。 ことは、究極の自己陶酔の経験です。 エントリの出版社との強力なコンテンツのaggregatorsこの陰気な風景は変わりつつあるけどね。
テレビの発明して以来何かあるとされていない媒体として物乞いになるには、インターネットです。
春の3つの類似性を頭に描くときにインターネット制には、現在の状態：
ライブラリをカオス
後者の日には神経回路網または同等の以前のネットワーク（電信、電話、鉄道）
新しい大陸
これらの非常に有用であることを証明する比喩（平滑ビジネス-賢明な） 。 彼ら問い合わせを定義する許可証に埋め込まれているインターネットの商業機会です。
しかし、彼らが失敗を支援する問い合わせには、その将来の予測変換を媒体となるでしょう。
どのような媒体になる発明のですか？ それはどのようになるときには1つですか？ どのような細い線は、初期の機能を分離してその変換からの発明を新しい媒体ですか？ 言い換えれば：私たちはいつ出産することでいくつかの技術的進歩して新しい媒体ですか？
この作品のイメージを扱っても一度、インターネットを媒体に変換します。
インターネットには、ほとんどのメディアの歴史の属性が異常です。
中央構造や組織がないことです。 これはハードウェアとソフトウェアの独立しています。 それ（ほぼ）を受けることはできません立法またはを調節します。 の例を考慮してインターネットから音楽をダウンロードする-に等しい行為を行うことは音楽の録音（著作権法に違反する）ですか？ 最重要事項とされて法廷闘争の間にダイヤモンドマルチメディア（ mp3デバイスの製造業者は、リオ） 、 mp3.comとナップスター社とレコード業界はアメリカです。
インターネットでのデータ転送チャネルは、特定のリニア-彼らはランダムにします。 ほとんどの"ブロードキャスト"することはできません"受信"すべてです。 これにより、 narrowcasting狭いの電子メールを使用したメーリングリスト、ディスカッショングループ、 メッセージボード、民間のラジオ局、およびチャットです。 これは印象ではなく、小さな部分のリストをoddities 。 これらの特異性にも図形の性質をするためのメディアとしてのインターネットです。 成長する奇妙なルーツ-それがバインドするためのメディアとしての収率奇妙な果実です。
これは、インターネットビジネスチャンスは何を表すか？
と信じて彼らは2つの部分で発見さより作成カテゴリ：
ソフトウェアとハードウェアに関連してインターネットするためのメディアとしての将来の
コンテンツの作成、管理、およびlicencing
地球の地図をinternetica
ユーザ
どのよう多くのインターネットユーザーは何ですか？ 彼らの多くは、どのようにアクセスし、 Web （ワールドワイドウェブ-にw ww）それを使うことですか？ 明確な統計はない。 これらの回答を与えるwhoおこがましくも〜 （含め、 ISOCから-インターネット社会） -資源に依存して非常に偏った部分とします。 他のブラフだけです。
しかし、誰もが同意するようにには、少なくとも、 100000000に積極的に参加北アメリカ（ニールセン社との商取引- Netの報告書） 。
将来は、必然的に、現在よりももっと漠然とした。 権威あるコンサルタント会社の予測66000000アクティブユーザーが10年ぶりです。 IBMのenvisages 700000000ユーザです。 MCIはもっと控えめな300万ドルだった。 1999年の終わりに1億3000万の登録があった（ただし、必ずしも積極的）からの来訪者です。
インターネット-メディアのエリート主義と愛国主義
の平均的なユーザーは、インターネットは、若年（ 30 ） 、学歴や高所得層にします。 の割合は、教育を受けたとの間の金回りがいいのユーザーは、ウェブは、 3倍の高さは、人口に比例します。 これは、高速の変更のみのために子供たちが参加して（ 6000000はすでに、インターネットへのアクセスを1996年の終わりに-とは別のメンバー登録2 4000000年末までに、 2 010年） 。 この5月の変更のみのために大統領のイニシアチブを橋の"デジタルディバイド" （よりアルゴアのは、アメリカ合衆国をmahatir 、マレーシアのモハメド） 、企業の気前の良さや制度の関与（例えば、開かれた社会、東欧、マイクロソフトは、アメリカ合衆国）です。 これらの努力が広がるの利点は、次のすべて-強力なツール間の少ない特権です。 少しが50 ％未満のすべてのユーザが男性しかし、彼らは責任を負うの60 ％をその活動は、当期純（として測定されたトラフィック）です。
女性のように限定して電子メール（電子メール） 、および電子ショッピングの商品やサービスを、これは急速な変化を遂げています。 男性を好む情報については、いずれかのためにキャリアのための要件や知識は力です。
ほとんどのユーザーは、 "経験者"様々です。 彼らは社会の変化と革新的な指導者です。 この繁殖生息大学、ファッショナブルな地域でトレンディな職業です。 これはなぜインターネットの場合、いくつかの不思議ではない別の流行だけが、信じられないほど弾力性と有望な1つです。
ほとんどのユーザーはインターネットへのアクセスをホーム-しかし、彼らは依然として仕事を好むにアクセスすることが、その雇用者の負担が、この設定では、わずかに浸食されたとします。 ほとんどのユーザーは、したがって、自然の搾取的です。 それでも、しなければならないことを忘れないで3700万世帯には、自営業者や画像、この可能性がやや歪曲の統計です。
インターネット-欧米の現象
特定アフリカではなく、アジア（日本を除いて、イスラエルとの）ではなく、ロシア語、また、第三世界の現象ではない。 それを直視して富裕層に属し、 sated世界です。 インダルジェンスオブこれらのことはwhoがすべてと、その最大の関心事は、その夜の娯楽の選択です。 五十から六十%のすべてのインターネットユーザーの間に住んでいるアメリカ合衆国、カナダで5-10 ％です。 インターネットが流行し、ヨーロッパの（主に、ドイツおよびスカンジナビア）と、その携帯フォーム（ iモード）の日本です。 インターネットで失われているため、フランスのミニテルの他のローカルに提供し、後者のコンテンツと関連性の高い通信のために高コストとハードウェアのです。
通信
ほとんどのコンピュータの所有者が保有して28800 bpsモデムです。 これは自転車と同じように、ドイツのアウトバーンを駆動する。 その代わり、 56600 bpsのは徐々に遅くなるの前任者（ 48 ％のコンピュータにモデム） -しかし、これはほとんどさえすれば十分でしょう。 を開始する、ビデオとオーディオを楽しむ（特に旧） -データ転送速度5 0倍高速化する必要があります。
は、アメリカ合衆国の半分の世帯は、少なくとも2人は、通常1つの電話や専用のデータ処理（ファクスまたはファックス-モデム）です。
のISDNを構成するのが中期的なソリューションです。 このネットワークは非常に迅速かつデータ転送の70 ％をカバーは、アメリカ合衆国の領土です。 これは100 ％成長し、年間100億ドルの売上高1位は1995年に/ 6 。
残念ながら、それは非常に明確に答えではないのISDNです。 それはあまりにも遅く、あまりにもユーザーに優しくない、不良インターフェイスには、他のネットワークの種類は、特別なハードウェアが必要です。 ポイントではない一時的なソリューションの投資にじっとときの解決策は、インターネットの右側に直面し、それは政治的な事情のために実装されていない。
80回は、ケーブルモデムは、より迅速なISDNや700倍以上の速さを14400 bpsモデムです。 しかし、問題が発生するわけでは、 accommodating 、双方向のデータ転送します。 また、光ファイバインフラストラクチャに接続する必要がありますが特徴の古い銅の同軸ケーブル会社は、テレフォニーインフラストラクチャが特徴です。 ケーブルのユーザーに従事する特別なカスタマイズランス（イーサネット）と、ハードウェアが高価な（ただし機器の価格は需要の増加が予想されるとして崩壊） 。 ケーブル会社に投資するだけでは発展途上の技術です。 同法（の前に、 1996年の通信法）を禁じてこれを行うに何か1つの方法ではないのビデオ経由で転送するケーブルです。 今すぐ、統制の他のリベラルな環境では、これは単なる技術の問題が発見されるまでの時間です。
実際、ほとんどの消費者として1つのアウト不良顧客との関係が最大の問題は、ケーブル会社-というより技術です。
ケーブルモデムのLED実験を実施して2倍の使用時間（二十四から四十七まで時間は平均1カ月、 1人のユーザー）が100速度の増加に起因する。 これは文化大革命を閉じるに配分して余暇の時間のです。 数値的に言えば： 7万世帯は、アメリカ合衆国が取り付けられて双方向のデータ転送ケーブルモデムです。 これは数が少ないと推測することは、誰かの場合にクリティカルマスを構成するものです。 このようなモデムの売上高の金額を、年間13億ドルです。
50 ％のすべてのケーブル加入者も自宅にはパソコンです。 をメインと思われる2つの技術のマージをするのは避けられない。
その他の技術的なソリューション-などのD SLモデム、 A DSLを他の有望な衛星放送とブロードバンド-開発し、実装されて、ゆっくりとではあると非効率的です。 年代は散発的に測定されるとイライラするか月待機期間です。
ハードウェアとソフトウェア
ほとんどのインターネットユーザー（ 82 ％ ）仕事をするためにWindowsオペレーティングシステムです。 約11 ％を所有するマッキントッシュ（はるかに強いグラフィックや他のユーザーフレンドリー） 。 わずか7 ％継続して作業をUNIXベースのシステム（これは、歴史的に、父親のインターネット） -と、この番号は高速低下している。 応募は、 無料の強いソースのリナックスオペレーティングシステムです。
事実上すべてのユーザーのネットサーフィンを介して閲覧ソフトです。 高速減少する少数派（ 26 ％ ）を使用ネットスケープ社の製品（主にナビゲーターとコミュニケーター）とマイクロソフト社のエクスプローラで使用するの過半数（ 60 ％以上の市場の）です。 ブラウザは今すぐ無料の製品や、インターネットからダウンロードできる。 1997年遅ければ、それは、インターネットコンサルタント会社が予言される主要なブラウザの売上高はトップへ4000000000ドル2000年までに年間です。 このような見当違いの予測を無視して、インターネットの基本的な気風： 無料の製品は、 無料のコンテンツ、 自由にアクセスします。
ブラウザは大転換をするためにします。 かれらの多くは性が高い3次元には、高度なオーディオ、テレフォニー/音声/ビデオメール（ v -メール） 、インスタントメッセージング、電子メール、およびビデオ会議機能を統合されたセッションのブラウジングと同じです。 かれらは自己のカスタマイズになる、インテリジェント、インターネットのインターフェイスです。 かれらは記憶の歴史の利用方法とユーザーの環境設定と適応してください。 かれらは特異性により、コンテンツ：正体不明のスマートエージェントは、洗掘、インターネット、に勧告し、比較価格は、商品やサービスを注文したり、カスタマイズの内容に沿ってユーザープロファイルを自動調整します。
2つの重要な技術開発を考慮する必要があります：
携帯情報端末（パーソナルデジタルアシスタント） -、究極の個人的な（そして事務所）コミュニケータ、簡単に運ぶ、彼ら提供するインターネット（アクセス）いたるところにあり、独立した納入業者やプロバイダとの物理的なインフラストラクチャ（は、飛行機、の分野では、映画館）です。
2番目の動向：ワイヤレスデータ転送や無線電子メール、ポケベルかどうかを通じて、携帯電話、または装置を通じて、ハイブリッド車など、より洗練されたスマートフォンです。 geotechの製品は、優れた例：電子メール、ファックス、電話やインターネットへの接続をすると、他のは、国民と企業のか、または独自の、データベース-ガジェットのすべての提供者と同じです。 これは、実施の態様は、電子的、物理的に分離、オフィスです。 ウェアラブルコンピューティングの一部では考えられるべきである"ユビキタスやパーベイシブコンピューティング"の波です。
私たちの測定方法がない-またはインテリジェント推測-モバイルインターネットの部分は、将来のインターネット市場での合計を上回る可能性しかし、これは、 "固定"の部分です。 ワイヤレスインターネットメッシュとよく合うの動向をパーベイシブコンピューティングとインテリジェントホームオフィスおよび小規模オフィスです。 ガジェットなどの家庭用電子レンジ、冷蔵庫などがインターネットに接続しては、無線インターフェイスを介してデータを処分、ダウンロードの情報については、注文商品やサービスを、報告書の条件や基本的なメンテナンス機能を実行します。 場所を特定のサービス（ナビゲーション、ショッピングの提言は、特別割引、取引や売上高、緊急サービス）の技術に依存して合流の間のGPS （ stalliteジオロケーション技術ベース）とワイヤレスインターネットです。
納入業者との仲介
"寄生"の各段階での仲介を占めるインターネットの食物連鎖です。
インターネットへのアクセスを提供さはまだ"ばかなパイプ" -しているインターネットサービスプロバイダ（ I SP）
コンテンツは、まだ、納入業者のコンテンツを保持しています。
いくつかの運命を徐々には、これらの仲介をフェードまたは実質的に苦しむの市場のシェアを徐々に減っています。 さらに"壁の庭園"のコンテンツ（例えば、 AOL社）が危険にさらされています。
道の比較され、今日でも、多くのISPは加入者の4倍（全世界）としてAOLのです。 確かに、これは、インターネットの品質に悪影響を及ぼします-保守管理している電話会社のインフラストラクチャに時間がかかるとしばしばボトルネックs uccumbsをします。 テレフォニージャイアンツの明確な意図を主な選手になることは、インターネット市場を考慮する必要があります。 電話会社は、このように、二役を演じる：かれらはそのインフラストラクチャのアクセスを提供して競合他社（場合によっては、実際にリアルまたは独占） -と彼らは顧客と競争する。 にも同じことがについては、ケーブル会社によるとします。 ラストマイルを制御して、ユーザーの住まいは、次のビッグビジネスは、インターネットです。 AOL社などの企業が不利な立場にされ、これらの動向です。 AOLのを入手することが不可欠であるの平等なアクセスを、ケーブルの会社のバックボーンおよびインフラストラクチャの場合にする必要が生き残るためです。 したがって、タイムワーナーの合併をします。
も不思議で判断するのISPの多くは、この侵入して縄張りされた電話やケーブル会社不当競争を構成する。 しかし、 1つのを忘れてはいけないへの参入障壁のでは、 ISP市場は非常に低いです。 〜するためには最小限の投資になることをISPのです。 200モデム（ 200ドルのコスト各）は十分なのニーズを満たし、 2000年の平均所得のユーザーwhoを生成するには、 ISP年率500000ドルです。 格安ルータとしても同様にしつづけている。 これは、ニース、 ISPの資本収益率を、間違いなく。
のhitchhikers
ウェブの家に相当する1000億ページをご覧ください。 検索エンジンのアプリケーションを使用して、この印象的な具体的な情報を見つけ、絶えず増殖ライブラリです。 かれらは置き換えは、近い将来、 "知識の構造" -巨大な年鑑、そのテキストが含ま参考文献（ハイパーリンク）を他の、関連性の高い、サイトです。 遠い将来の出現を目の当たりにする"インテリジェントアーカイブ"と"個人的な新聞" （先を読むより詳細なの詳細な説明） 。 いくつかのソフトウェアアプリケーションは、コンテンツの要約、その他はインデックスに登録して自動的にリファレンスとハイパーリンクのテキスト（仮想bibliographies学） 。 上の平均的なユーザーは、継続的に関心がある500のサイトです。 特別なソフトウェアは必要に応じてアドレス帳を管理する（ "ブックマーク" 、 "追加" ）と内容（ "インテリジェントaddressbooks " ） 。 その現象の専用の検索エンジンを検索すると同時に、いくつかの検索エンジンに成長（ "ハイパーまたはメタ-エンジン" ） 。 仕事のmeta -エンジンがハイパーリンクを背景にしてダウンロードすると広告（後者は、金融の利益を確保するに欠かせないサイトの開発者と所有者）です。 統計ソフトウェアのトラック（ "どのくらい時間がどのような完了" ） 、モニター（ "どのようなサイトの中にかれらは"を参照） 、カウント（ "どのよう多くの" ）訪問者をサイトには既に存在します。 いくつかのアプリケーションには、バックオフィス＆サービス（会計、フォローアップ、コレクション、さらにテレマーケティング）です。 彼らのすべての時間を提供できるように、いくつかの監査証跡とします。
これは小さな断片ではなく、ネットの急速な発展途上スケープ： whoの人々や企業のインターネットブームで生計を立てるオフオフではなく、インターネットそのものです。 誰もが知っているが講義にはもっとお金を参照するにはインターネット上で金を稼ぐ-よりも、インターネットそのものです。 このことが当てはまりますマキシムにもかかわらず、依然として三二〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇ドルを電子商取引では1998年です。 ビジネス情報を消費者（企業対消費者）売上高成長よりも少ないのビジネスを積極的に取引（ B2B ）売上高とは別の打撃を受ける可能性の時代の到来をピアツーピア（ P2P ）をコンピュータネットワークです。 後者の行為として許可するサーバーとパソコンを有効にしてこのようにコンピュータのファイル交換asmong接続しているユーザー（の有無に関係なく、中央のディレクトリ）です。
コンテンツサプライヤー
これは、恵まれない人々のインターネット部門です。 彼らのすべてのお金を失う（電子小売業者に提供する基本的にも、標準品-書籍、 C D、音楽-を除いて、 9月1 1日まで、観光のサイトに接続して） 。 それらを1つのコンテンツのおかげで制作された投資額は、多大な努力や、たくさんのお金をします。 本当に質的には、完全に商取引サイトのコストアップを5000000ドル有効になって、サイトのメンテナンス作業を除くと、顧客やユーザーのサービスです。 コンテンツプロバイダは常に創造性を欠くとの批判や創造性を過ぎる。 ますます多くのことが求められる。 彼らは仲介者に悪用される、 hitchhikersおよびその他の寄生虫です。 これはすべてのシュートをオフにする気風は、インターネットを無料でコンテンツエリアです。
億以上の男性と女性に頻繁にアクセスするウェブ-しかし、この番号をスタンドに成長（中央値予測： 3 00百万米ドル）です。 しかし、ウェブで使用されるが、それらの35 ％がインターネットへのアクセスを-e - m ailでの6 0％以上使用されています。 e - mailでので圧倒的に多くの共通機能（ "キラーアプリケーション"を参照） 、特殊なアプリケーション（ユードラ、インターネットメールは、 Microsoft Exchange ） -無料または広告スポンサー-保つことでアクセスできるようにすべてのユーザーフレンドリーです。
ほとんどのユーザのようにネットサーフィン（ブラウズ、あるサイトにアクセスする） 、当期純なしの理由または目標を念頭に置いています。 これにより、伝統的なマーケティング手法を適用することは難しいです。
どのような意味の"ターゲットを絞った視聴者"または"市場シェア"このような状況ですか？
サーファーが訪問するサイトの場合に対処する核物理学で異常なセックスと同じセッション-何を作るのですか？
国民や立法に対する反発ザギャザリングのサーファー'データをインターネット広告代理店や他のウェブサイト-さんがつながって成長無知のインターネットユーザーのプロファイルについては、彼らの人口、習慣、環境設定と嫌いです。
人々のネットサーフィンのように非常に行動します。 になりたいかを楽しませ、インターネットを利用して入力し、彼らの作業ツールとして、主に、サービスの雇用者、 who 、 24時間足の法案です。 ユーザーの愛無料ダウンロード（主にソフトウェア） 。
"自由"は、インターネット上でのキーワード：それ使用して、米国政府に属して大勢の大学としています。 ユーザのような情報については、データに重点を置いてニュースや新製品についてです。 しかし、彼らはありませんネット上のショップのように-はまだありません。 のみ38 ％のすべてのサーファーは、 1998年に購入依頼中です。
67 ％のバーチャルセックスを崇拝することです。 の50 ％を最も頻繁に訪問するサイトは、ポルノサイト（これは、初期の頃を彷彿させるのにも、ビデオカセットレコーダー-ビデオデッキ）です。 人々にささげる時間を見て、同じ量のビデオカセットやテレビと同じように、ネットサーフィンをする。 共食いをするように、インターネットテレビです。
性別に続いて音楽、スポーツ、保健医療、テレビ、コンピュータ、映画館、政治、ペットや料理のサイトです。 インタラクティブゲームを人々が描かれています。 すぐに有効に、インターネットは人々をギャンブル、阻害されていない場合は立法です。 ギャンブル資金は100億ドルの予測を通過するNETを起動します。 これにより、センス：何ものようにコンピュータを提供する即時（金銭的、心理的）な報酬です。
ネット上の商取引は、別のお気に入りです。 インターネットは、完璧な媒体の販売をソフトウェアおよびその他のデジタル製品（電子書籍）です。 のデータを安全保障上の問題が解決しているその方法の設定（または他の）世界標準です。
早ければ1995年、インターネットは、 100以上の仮想ショッピングモールを訪れた買い物客を2500000 （そしておそらく、この番号をダブル1996年） 。
1999年の予測ではドルの間にネットショッピング一から五〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 〇 （プラス20億ドルをラインを通じて情報提供者、およびAOLコンピュサーブなど） -証明はなはだ不正確になる。 1998年の実際の数は1999年には7倍の予測です。
circaことも広く信じられている低予算の20 ％を、ご家族としては、インターネットを通過する電子マネーと、この金額は150億ドルです。
巨大なインターネットになると様々な決済システムインターバンクや投資銀行のATMのタイプのサービスは提供されています。 基本的には、インターネットを介して、すべてを冒さず：仕事を探して、例えばです。
しかし、インターネットは決して人間の相互作用に置き換えています。 人々が好むように個人的な銀行、ウィンドウショッピングやショッピングモールの社会的経験を、インターネットバンキングや電子商取引、またはmコマースです。
すでにいくつかのサイトの広告スポーツ、野外活動に分類します。 これは悪くない費用を支払う方法を、ほとんどのクラシファイド広告は無料 （それは彼らを引き付けるに掲載する広告の問題） 。
他の発展途上傾向がウェブサイトの評価と批判します。 のように扱われることは、今日のプリントのエディションがあります。 初回限定影響を及ぼすことには、いくつかのユーザーの消費意思決定します。 ブラウザは既にスポーツボタンラベル"の新機能"と"何のホット" 。 ほとんどの検索エンジンの特定のサイトを推奨します。 ユーザーは慎重です。 研究発見したことは絶対にありませんユーザーは、どんなに重い、常に再訪問は、 200以上のサイトは、ほんのわずかな番号です。 する10一番人気のウェブサイト（ヤフー！は、 MSNの、等）の魅力の50 ％を超えるすべてのインターネットトラフィックのです。 サイトの推薦サービスを頻繁にランダムに生成-回、間違って-そのユーザを選択します。 には、プライバシーの問題も懸念します。 backlah反対するアマゾンコム社の"読者のサークル"はその一例です。
ウェブの批評家、 who仕事今日、主に印刷プレス、ネット上の土器は公表しているとは、インテリジェントなソフトウェアがハイパーリンクのリンクを、オススメを参照します。 批評家、いくつかのウェブで識別される特定のアプリケーション-本当に、エキスパートシステムがその知識と経験を組み込む。
お金
資本金はどこに、すべての融資を必要に応じてこれらの発展に来たのですか？
再び、には2つの学校：
1つのサイトによると、融資を通じて広告掲載される-などの検索エンジンやその他のアプリケーションは、ユーザーがアクセスされています。
特定のASP事業（アプリケーションサービスプロバイダーのアプリケーションソフトウェアのアクセスを貸し出すが常駐してサーバ）は、このモデルを検討しています。
2番目のバージョンはシンプルで存在により、非営利的なコンテンツです。
ごくわずかな金額を収集することを提言（または分数のセントセント）より、すべてのユーザーごとに訪問（ "ミクロのお支払い" ）または、購読料です。 これらの蓄積セントまたは有効にするには、所有者の購読料を更新すると、古いサイトを維持する起業家を奨励し、新しいものを開発する。 特定のコンテンツのアグリゲータ（特にデジタル教科書）が採択このモデル（ questia 、尋） 。
学校の支持者の最初の指摘は、 5百万ドルを投資して1995年に広告掲載中に60万ドルで、 1996年の間に投資します。
その点正確には、反対派と同じ番号：すずめの涙ほど従来の広告掲載時に対照的に他のモードがあります。 ネット上の広告の可能性は限られ、年間1.5億ドル1998年には、 thunderedの悲観論者（多くの半分考えてもそれは非常にニース） 。 、実際の数字は予測の2倍の痛ましいほどに小さく、それでも不十分なインターネットのコンテンツの開発をサポートする。
これらの数字を比較しての販売をインターネットソフトウェア（ 40億0000万ドル） 、インターネットのハードウェア（ 30億0000万ドル） 、インターネット接続サービスの提供（ 42億ドル）は1995年にします。
モリバトhembrechtと推定されるインターネット関連産業scooped 23200000000ドルアップ年間（ 1996年半ばにリリースされた報告書） 。
とどのような広告はほとんどの他のenocuraging以下の通りです。
消費者の相互作用とその製品を納品するのだ。 この-の配信位相-は、ゆっくりと気力を失わせるようエピローグエキサイティングな事件を、ネットを通じての発注は、高速の光です。 あまりにも多くの消費者はまだていないと不満をどのように指示を受けるか、またはその配信が遅れや製品の欠陥です。
5月の統合ソリューションでうそをつくの広告やコンテンツです。 [ PointCast 、例えば、統合の広告をそのニュース放送、ストリーミング配信を継続して、ユーザーの画面の場合でも、非アクティブ（積極的に提供スクリーンセーバーやティッカーをダウンロードし、 "プッシュ技術" ） 。 デジタル音楽のダウンロード、ビデオ、およびテキスト（電子書籍）は、即座に得られる満足につながるのは、消費者と広告の効果を増加させる。
いずれにせよ年5月には、制服、合意システムの基盤としての役割を評価充電広告主様は、急遽必要です。 という問題もあるが、広告主はどのような有料ですか？
多くの広告主（プロクターアンドギャンブル、例えば）によると、支払いを拒否する件数や表示回数（ =エントリを、サイトを訪問して下さい） 。 彼らによれば、支払うことに同意するだけの数の倍にその広告は、ヒット（ページビュー）です。
この計算の基礎を別の混乱をすべての収益性が高いシナリオです。
非常にいくつかのサイトの重要なのは、立派な新聞には、購読料を払っています。 ダウジョーンズ（ウォールストリートジャーナル』紙）とのエコノミスト、言及しかし、 2つです。
この傾向が優勢になるのですか？
隠喩としてのインターネット
心の3つの比喩来て検討する際にインターネットの"哲学的"です。
ライブラリとして、インターネットカオス
1 。 の問題を公開
インターネットは、数十億の品揃えを含むページの情報です。 いくつかのことが見えるし、それ以外は隠されたデータベースから生成され、ユーザーの要求（ "目に見えないインターネット" ） 。
識別するため、インターネットが表示されない、分類、あるいは分類します。 とは対照的に"クラシック"ライブラリは、標準の1つの目録を発明するには（覚えてデューイですか？ ）です。 必要に応じてこれは非常に驚くべきことが発明されていないことはまだありません。 いくつかのサイトを実際に適用してデューイ10進法syatem （ suite101 ） 。 その他のデフォルトのディレクトリ構造を参照して下さい（オープンディレクトリの、ヤフー！は、洗練されているなど）です。
このような標準が存在する（公開法に合意した数値） -各サイトは自己に分類します。 サイトに関心がこれを行うには浸透率を上げるには、可視性とそのです。 これは、当然のことながら、排除する必要が今日の無骨な、不完全なと（高い）非効率な検索エンジンです。
サイトのコードを起動すると900は直ちに対処として識別され、複数の歴史と細かく分類される断面を許可する奨励をemergeします。 このような新技術の例を"自動分類"と"自己出版" （学術資源かかわらず限定される）は、 "学術リソースチャンネル"をscindexです。
ユーザはできませんが必要となります。 reamsの数字を覚えています。 私の将来のブラウザをカタログは、非常に現代のようにライブラリアプリケーションで使用されています。 このゆーとぴあは、現在のdystopy比較します。 ユーザーの闘いの低い材料reams部分と失望を最後に目的地に到達する。 それと同時に、 Webサイトにある可能性が非常に悪いのユーザーのニーズに正確に一致しています。 しかし、現在どのようなチャンスを決定するユーザーとの間に幸福な出会いコンテンツ-の気まぐれを満足さは、特定の検索エンジンで使用され、物事のようなメタタグ、見出しは、手数料が支払わか、または右側のオープニングの文章です。
2 。 画面の対ページ
は、コンピュータの画面で、物理的な制限のために（サイズ、という事実にするにスクロール）を効果的に競争に失敗した場合、印刷ページをご覧ください。 後者はまだありませんがまだ中で最も独創的な発明は、ストレージとのテキスト情報を発売します。 付与：コンピュータの画面では優れているディスクリートユニットの情報をハイライト表示します。 そのため、この引き分けのbatlle行：構造（印刷ページ）対ユニット（画面）に、継続的かつ容易に可逆的対のディスクリートです。
効率的な方法での解決策は、コンピュータ画面に印刷物を翻訳する。 を信じることは難しいが、そんなものが存在します。 コンピュータ画面はまだ敵対印刷ラインをオフにします。 言い換えれば：もし、ユーザーからの情報をインターネット上で自分のコピーワードプロセッサ（あるいはその逆に、そのことについては） -彼は断片化が終了すると、ゴミで満たされたと非審美的なドキュメントです。
非常にいくつかのサイトについてはそれをしようとする開発者-さえ少ない成功します。
3 。 インターネットとは、 CD - ROM
1つのコンテンツを納入業者の最大の過ちを混在させないでは、これらの内容またはには、 "静的な-動的な相互作用"です。
インターネットで簡単にできるようになりました。対話を他のメディア（特にオーディオCDやCD - ROMの） -さえも、ユーザーs urfsです。
たくさんの例：
ショッピングカタログ上に分散することは、 CD - ROMを郵送します。 The Internet Site will allow the user to order a product previously selected from the catalogue, while off-line. The catalogue could also be updated through the site (as is done with CD-ROM encyclopedias).
The advantages of the CD-ROM are clear: very fast access time (dozens of times faster than the access to a site using a dial up connection) and a data storage capacity tens of times bigger than the average website.
Another example: a CD-ROM can be distributed, containing hundreds of advertisements. The consumer will select the ad that he wants to see and will connect to the Internet to view a relevant video.
He could then also have an interactive chat (or a conference) with a salesperson, receive information about the company, about the ad, about the advertising agency which created the ad - and so on.
CD-ROM based encyclopedias (such as the Britannica, Encarta, Grolier) already contain hyperlinks which carry the user to sites selected by an Editorial Board.
But CD-ROMs are probably a doomed medium. This industry chose to emphasize the wrong things. Storage capacity increased exponentially and, within a year, desktops with 80 Gb hard disks will be common. Moreover, the Network Computer - the stripped down version of the personal computer - will put at the disposal of the average user terabytes in storage capacity and the processing power of a supercomputer. What separates computer users from this utopia is the communication bandwidth. With the introduction of radio, statellite, ADSL broadband services, cable modems and compression methods - video (on demand), audio and data will be available speedily and plentifully.
The CD-ROM, on the other hand, is not mobile. It requires installation and the utilization of sophisticated hardware and software. This is no user friendly push technology. It is nerd-oriented. As a result, CD-ROMs are not an immediate medium. There is a long time lapse between the moment they are purchased and the moment the first data become accessible to the user. Compare this to a book or a magazine. Data in these oldest of media is instantly available to the user and allows for easy and accurate "back" and "forward" functions.
Perhaps the biggest mistake of CD-ROM manufacturers has been their inability to offer an integrated hardware and software package. CD-ROMs are not compact. A Walkman is a compact hardware-cum-software package. It is easily transportable, it is thin, it contains numerous, user-friendly, sophisticated functions, it provides immediate access to data. So does the discman or the MP3-man. This cannot be said of the CD-ROM. By tying its future to the obsolete concept of stand-alone, expensive, inefficient and technologically unreliable personal computers - CD-ROMs have sentenced themselves to oblivion (with the possible exception of reference material).
4 。 On-line Reference Libraries
These already exist. A visit to the on-line Encyclopaedia Britannica exemplifies some of the tremendous, mind boggling possibilities:
Each entry is hyperlinked to sites on the Internet which deal with the same subject matter. The sites are carefully screened (though more detailed descriptions of each site should be available - they could be prepared either by the staff of the encyclopaedia or by the site owner). Links are available to data in various forms, including audio and video. Everything can be copied to the hard disk or to CD-ROMs.
This is a new conception of a knowledge centre - not just an assortment of material. It is modular, can be added on and subtracted from. It can be linked to a voice Q&A centre. Queries by subscribers can be answered by e-mail, by fax, posted on the site, hard copies can be sent by post. This "Trivial Pursuit" service could be very popular - there is considerable appetite for "Just in Time Information". The Library of Congress - together with a few other libraries - is in the process of making just such a service available to the public (CDRS - Collaborative Digital Reference Service).
5 。 The Feedback Option
Hard to believe, but very few sites encourage their guests to express an opinion about the site, its contents and its aesthetics. This indicates an ossified mode of thinking about the most dynamic mass medium ever created, the only interactive mass medium yet. Each site must absolutely contain feedback and rating questionnaires. It has the side benefit of creating a database of the visitors to the site.
Moreover, each site can easily become a "knowledge centre".
Let us consider a site dedicated to advertising and marketing:
It can contain feedback questionnaires (what do you think about the site, suggestions for improvement, mailto and leave message facilities, etc.)
It can contain rating questionnaires (rate these ads, these TV or radio shows, these advertising campaigns).
It can allocate some space to clients to create their home pages in (these home pages could lead to their sites, to other sites, to other sections of the host site - and, in any case, will serve as a display of the creative talent of the site owners). This will give the site owners a picture of the distribution of the areas of interest of the visitors to the site.
The site can include statistical, tracking and counter software.
Such a site can refer to hundreds of useful shareware applications (which deal with different aspects of advertising and marketing, for instance). Developers of applications will be able to use the site to promote their products. Other practical applications could also be referred to from - or reside on - the site (browsers, games, search engines).
And all this can be organized in a portal structure (for instance, by adopting the open software of the Open Directory Project).
6 。 Internet Derived CD-ROMS
The Internet is an enormous reservoir of freely available, public domain, information.
With a minimal investment, this information can be gathered into coherent, theme oriented, cheap CD-ROMs. Each such CD-ROM can contain:
Addresses of web sites specific to the subject matter
The first pages of each of these sites
Hyperlinks to each of the sites
A browser
Access to all the important search engines
Recommended search strings (it is extremely difficult to formulate a successful search in the Internet, it takes expertise. "Ready-made searches" will be a hit in the future, as the number of sites grows)
A dictionary of professional terms, a speller and a thesaurus
A list of general reference sites
Shareware specific to the field
7 。 Publishing
The Internet is the world's largest "publisher", by far. It "publishes" FAQs (Frequent Answers and Questions regarding almost every technical matter in the world), e-zines (electronic versions of magazines, not a very profitable pursuit), the electronic versions of dailies (together with on-line news and information services), reference and other e-books, monographs, articles and minutes of discussions ("threads"), among other types of material.
Publishing an e-zine has a few advantages: it promotes the sales of the printed edition, it helps to sign on subscribers and it leads to the sale of advertising space. The electronic archive function (see next section) saves the need to file back issues, the space required to do so and the irritating search for data items.
The future trend is a combined subscription: electronic (mainly for the archival value and the ability to hyperlink to additional information) and printed (easier to browse current issue).
The electronic daily presents other advantages:
It allows for immediate feedback and for flowing, almost real-time, communication between writers and readers. The electronic version, therefore, acquires a gyroscopic function: a navigation instrument, always indicating deviations from the "right" course. The content can be instantly updated and immediacy has its premium (remember the Lewinsky affair?).
Strangely, this (conventional) field was the first to develop a "virtual reality" facet. There are virtual "magazine stalls". They look exactly like the real thing and the user can buy a paper using his mouse.
Specialty hand held devices already allow for downloading and storage of vast quantities of data (up to 4000 print pages). The user gains access to libraries containing hundreds of texts, adapted to be downloaded, stored and read by the specific device. Again, a convergence of standards is to be expected in this field as well (the final contenders will probably be Adobe's PDF against Microsoft's MS-Reader).
Broadly, e-books are treated either as:
Continuation of print books (p-books) by other means
or as
A whole new publishing universe.
Since p-books are a more convenient medium then e-books - they will prevail in any straightforward "medium replacement" or "medium displacement" battle.
In other words, if publishers will persist in the simple and straightforward conversion of p-books to e-books - then e-books are doomed. They are simply inferior to the price, comfort, tactile delights, browseability and scanability of p-books.
But e-books - being digital - open up a vista of hitherto neglected possibilities. These will only be enhanced and enriched by the introduction of e-paper and e-ink. Among them:
Hyperlinks within the e-book and without it - to web content, reference works, etc.
Embedded instant shopping and ordering links
Divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines
Interaction with other e-books (using a wireless standard) - collaborative authoring
Interaction with other e-books - gaming and community activities
Automatically or periodically updated content
Multimedia
Database, Favourites and History Maintenance (reading habits, shopping habits, interaction with other readers, plot related decisions and much more)
Automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation capabilities
Full wireless piconetworking and scatternetworking capabilities
The technology is still not fully there. Wars rage in both the wireless and the ebook realms. Platforms compete. Standards clash. Gurus debate. But convergence is inevitable and with it the e-book of the future.
8 。 The Archive Function
The Internet is also the world's biggest cemetery: tens of thousands of deadbeat sites, still accessible - the "Ghost Sites" of this electronic frontier.
This, in a way, is collective memory. One of the Internet's main functions will be to preserve and transfer knowledge through time. It is called "memory" in biology - and "archive" in library science. The history of the Internet is being documented by search engines (Google) and specialized services (Alexa) alike.
The Internet as a Collective Brain
Drawing a comparison from the development of a human baby - the human race has just commenced to develop its neural system.
The Internet fulfils all the functions of the Nervous System in the body and is, both functionally and structurally, pretty similar. It is decentralized, redundant (each part can serve as functional backup in case of malfunction). It hosts information which is accessible in a few ways, it contains a memory function, it is multimodal (multimedia - textual, visual, audio and animation).
I believe that the comparison is not superficial and that studying the functions of the brain (from infancy to adulthood) - amounts to perusing the future of the Net itself.
1 。 The Collective Computer
To carry the metaphor of "a collective brain" further, we would expect the processing of information to take place in the Internet, rather than inside the end-user's hardware (the same way that information is processed in the brain, not in the eyes ） 。 Desktops will receive the results and communicate with the Net to receive additional clarifications and instructions and to convey information gathered from their environment (mostly, from the user).
This is part fo the philosophy of the JAVA programming language. It deals with applets - small bits of software - and links different computer platforms by means of software.
Put differently:
Future servers will contain not only information (as they do today) - but also software applications. The user of an application will not be forced to buy it. He will not be driven into hardware-related expenditures to accommodate the ever growing size of applications. He will not find himself wasting his scarce memory and computing resources on passive storage. Instead, he will use a browser to call a central computer. This computer will contain the needed software, broken to its elements (=applets, small applications). Anytime the user wishes to use one of the functions of the application, he will siphon it off the central computer. When finished - he will "return" it. Processing speeds and response times will be such that the user will not feel at all that it is not with his own software that he is working (the question of ownership will be very blurred in such a world). This technology is available and it provoked a heated debated about the future shape of the computing industry as a whole (desktops - really power packs - or network computers, a little more than dumb terminals). Applications are already offered to corporate users by ASPs (Application Service Providers).
In the last few years, scientists put the combined power of the computers linked to the internet at any given moment to perform astounding feats of distributed parallel processing. Millions of PCs connected to the net co-process signals from outer space, meteorological data and solve complex equations. This is a prime example of a collective brain in action.
2 。 The Intranet - a Logical Extension of the Collective Computer
LANs (Local Area Networks) are no longer a rarity in corporate offices. WANs (wide Area Networks) are used to connect geographically dispersed organs of the same legal entity (branches of a bank, daughter companies, a sales force). Many LANs are wireless.
The intranet / extranet and wireless LANs will be the winners. They will gradually eliminate both fixed line LANs and WANs. The Internet offers equal, platform-independent, location-independent and time of day - independent access to all the members of an organization.Sophisticated firewall security application protects the privacy and confidentiality of the intranet from all but the most determined and savvy hackers.
The Intranet is an inter-organizational communication network, constructed on the platform of the Internet and which enjoys all its advantages. The extranet is open to clients and suppliers as well.
The company's server can be accessed by anyone authorized, from anywhere, at any time (with local - rather than international - communication costs). The user can leave messages (internal e-mail or v-mail), access information - proprietary or public - from it and to participate in "virtual teamwork" (see next chapter).
By the year 2002, a standard intranet interface will emerge. This will be facilitated by the opening up of the TCP/IP communication architecture and its availability to PCs. A billion USD will go just to finance intranet servers - or, at least, this is the median forecast.
The development of measures to safeguard server routed inter-organizational communication (firewalls) is the solution to one of two obstacles to the institution of the Intranet. The second problem is the limited bandwidth which does not permit the efficient transfer of audio (not to mention video).
It is difficult to conduct video conferencing through the Internet. Even the voices of discussants who use internet phones come out (slightly) distorted.
All this did not prevent 95% of the Fortune 1000 from installing intranet. 82% of the rest intend to install one by the end of this year. Medium to big size American firms have 50-100 intranet terminals per every internet one.
At the end of 1997, there were 10 web servers per every other type of server in organizations. The sale of intranet related software was projected to multiply by 16 (to 8 billion USD) by the year 1999.
One of the greatest advantages of the intranet is the ability to transfer documents between the various parts of an organization. Consider Visa: it pushed 2 million documents per day internally in 1996.
An organization equipped with an intranet can (while protected by firewalls) give its clients or suppliers access to non-classified correspondence. This notion has its charm. Consider a newspaper: it can give access to all the materials which were discarded by the editors. Some news are fit to print - yet are discarded because of space limitations. Still, someone is bound to be interested. It costs the newspaper close to nothing (the material is, normally, already computer-resident) - and it might even generate added circulation and income. It can be even conceived as an "underground, non-commercial, alternative" newspaper for a wholly different readership.
The above is but one example of the possible use of the intranet to communicate with the organization's consumer base.
3 。 Mail and Chat
The Internet (its e-mail possibilities) is eroding traditional mail. The market share of the post office in conveying messages by regular mail has dwindled from 77% to 62% (1995). E-mail has expanded to capture 36% (up from 19%).
90% of customers with on-line access use e-mail from time to time and 60% work with it regularly. More than 2 billion messages traverse the internet daily.
E-mail applications are available as freeware and are included in all browsers. Thus, the Internet has completely assimilated what used to be a separate service, to the extent that many people make the mistake of thinking that e-mail is a feature of the Internet. Microsoft continues to incorporate previously independent applications in its browsers - a behaviour which led to the 1999 anti-trust lawsuit against it.
The internet will do to phone calls what it has done to mail. Already there are applications (Intel's, Vocaltec's, Net2Phone) which enable the user to conduct a phone conversation through his computer. The voice quality has improved. The discussants can cut into each others words, argue and listen to tonal nuances. Today, the parties (two or more) engaging in the conversation must possess the same software and the same (computer) hardware. In the very near future, computer-to-regular phone applications will eliminate this requirement. And, again, simultaneous multi-modality: the user can talk over the phone, see his party, send e-mail, receive messages and transfer documents - without obstructing the flow of the conversation.
The cost of transferring voice will become so negligible that free voice traffic is conceivable in 3-5 years. Data traffic will overtake voice traffic by a wide margin.
This beats regular phones.
The next phase will probably involve virtual reality. Each of the parties will be represented by an "avatar", a 3-D figurine generated by the application (or the user's likeness mapped into the software and superimposed on the the avatar). These figurines will be multi-dimensional: they will possess their own communication patterns, special habits, history, preferences - in short: their own "personality".
Thus, they will be able to maintain an "identity" and a consistent pattern of communication which they will develop over time.
Such a figure could host a site, accept, welcome and guide visitors, all the time bearing their preferences in its electronic "mind". It could narrate the news, like "Ananova" does. Visiting sites in the future is bound to be a much more pleasant affair.
4 。 E-cash
In 1996, the four corporate giants (Visa, MasterCard, Netscape and Microsoft) agreed on a standard for effecting secure payments through the Internet: SET. Internet commerce is supposed to mushroom by a factor of 50 to 25 billion USD. Site owners will be able to collect rent from passing visitors - or fees for services provided within the site. Amazon instituted an honour system to collect donations from visitors. Dedicated visitors will not be deterred by such trifles.
5 。 The Virtual Organization
The Internet allows simultaneous communication between an almost unlimited number of users. This is coupled with the efficient transfer of multimedia (video included) files.
This opens up a vista of mind boggling opportunities which are the real core of the Internet revolution: the virtual collaborative ("Follow the Sun") modes.
Examples:
A group of musicians will be able to compose music or play it - while spatially and temporally separated;
Advertising agencies will be able to co-produce ad campaigns in a real time interactive mode;
Cinema and TV films will be produced from disparate geographical spots through the teamwork of people who never meet, except through the net.
These examples illustrate the concept of the "virtual community". Locations in space and time will no longer hinder a collaboration in a team: be it scientific, artistic, cultural, or for the provision of services (a virtual law firm or accounting office, a virtual consultancy network).
Two on going developments are the virtual mall and the virtual catalogue.
There are well over 300 active virtual malls in the Internet. They were frequented by 32.5 million shoppers, who shopped in them for goods and services in 1998. The intranet can also be thought of as a "virtual organization", or a "virtual business".
The virtual mall is a computer "space" (pages) in the internet, wherein "shops" are located. These shops offer their wares using visual, audio and textual means. The visitor passes a gate into the store and looks through its offering, until he reaches a buying decision. Then he engages in a feedback process: he pays (with a credit card), buys the product and waits for it to arrive by mail. The manufacturers of digital products (intellectual property such as e-books or software) have begun selling their merchandise on-line, as file downloads.
Yet, slow communications and limited bandwidth - constrain the growth potential of this mode of sale. Once solved - intellectual property will be sold directly from the net, on-line. Until such time, the intervention of the Post Office is still required. So, then virtual mall is nothing but a glorified computerized mail catalogue or Buying Channel, the only difference being the exceptionally varied inventory.
Websites which started as "specialty stores" are fast transforming themselves into multi-purpose virtual malls. Amazon.com, for instance, has bought into a virtual pharmacy and into other virtual businesses. It is now selling music, video, electronics and many other products. It started as a bookstore.
This contrasts with a much more creative idea: the virtual catalogue. It is a form of narrowcasting (as opposed to broadcasting): a surgically accurate targeting of potential consumer audiences. Each group of profiled consumers (no matter how small) is fitted with their own - digitally generated - catalogue. This is updated daily: the variety of wares on offer (adjusted to reflect inventory levels, consumer preferences and goods in transit) - and prices (sales, discounts, package deals) change in real time.
The user will enter the site and there delineate his consumption profile and his preferences. A customized catalogue will be immediately generated for him.
From then on, the history of his purchases, preferences and responses to feedback questionnaires will be accumulated and added to a database.
Each catalogue generated for him will come replete with order forms. Once the user concluded his purchases, his profile will be updated.
There is no technological obstacles to implementing this vision today - only administrative and legal ones. Big retail stores are not up to processing the flood of data expected to arrive. They also remain highly sceptical regarding the feasibility of the new medium. And privacy issues prevent data mining or the effective collection and usage of personal data.
The virtual catalogue is a private case of a new internet off-shoot: the "smart (shopping) agents". These are AI applications with "long memories".
They draw detailed profiles of consumers and users and then suggest purchases and refer to the appropriate sites, catalogues, or virtual malls.
They also provide price comparisons and the new generation (NetBot) cannot be blocked or fooled by using differing product categories.
In the future, these agents will refer also to real life retail chains and issue a map of the branch or store closest to an address specified by the user (the default being his residence). This technology can be seen in action in a few music sites on the web and is likely to be dominant with wireless internet appliances. The owner of an internet enabled (third generation) mobile phone is likely to be the target of geographically-specific marketing campaigns, ads and special offers pertaining to his current location (as reported by his GPS - satellite Geographic Positioning System).
6 。 Internet News
Internet news are advantaged. They can be frequently and dynamically updated (unlike static print news) and be always accessible (similar to print news), immediate and fresh.
The future will witness a form of interactive news. A special "corner" in the site will be open to updates posted by the public (the equivalent of press releases). This will provide readers with a glimpse into the making of the news, the raw material news are made of. The same technology will be applied to interactive TVs. Content will be downloaded from the internet and be displayed as an overlay on the TV screen or in a square in a special location. The contents downloaded will be directly connected to the TV programming. Thus, the biography and track record of a football player will be displayed during a football match and the history of a country when it gets news coveage.
Terra Internetica - Internet, an Unknown Continent
This is an unconventional way to look at the Internet. Laymen and experts alike talk about "sites" and "advertising space". Yet, the Internet was never compared to a new continent whose surface is infinite.
The Internet will have its own real estate developers and construction companies. The real life equivalents derive their profits from the scarcity of the resource that they exploit - the Internet counterparts will derive their profits from the tenants (the content).
Two examples:
A few companies bought "Internet Space" (pages, domain names, portals), developed it and make commercial use of it by:
renting it out
constructing infrastructure and selling it
providing an intelligent gateway, entry point to the rest of the internet
or selling advertising space which subsidizes the tenants (Yahoo!-Geocities, Tripod and others).
Cybersquatting (purchasing specific domain names identical to brand names in the "real" world) and then selling the domain name to an interested party
Internet Space can be easily purchased or created. The investment is low and getting lower with the introduction of competition in the field of domain registration services and the increase in the number of top domains.
Then, infrastructure can be erected - for a shopping mall, for free home pages, for a portal, or for another purpose. It is precisely this infrastructure that the developer can later sell, lease, franchise, or rent out.
At the beginning, only members of the fringes and the avant-garde (inventors, risk assuming entrepreneurs, gamblers) invest in a new invention. The invention of a new communications technology is mostly accompanied by devastating silence.
No one knows to say what are the optimal uses of the invention (in other words, what is its future). Many - mostly members of the scientific and business elites - argue that there is no real need for the invention and that it substitutes a new and untried way for old and tried modes of doing the same thing (so why assume the risk?)
These criticisms are usually founded:
To start with, there is, indeed, no need for the new medium. A new medium invents itself - and the need for it. It also generates its own market to satisfy this newly found need.
Two prime examples are the personal computer and the compact disc.
When the PC was invented, its uses were completely unclear. Its performance was lacking, its abilities limited, it was horribly user unfriendly.
It suffered from faulty design, absent user comfort and ease of use and required considerable professional knowledge to operate. The worst part was that this knowledge was unique to the new invention (not portable).
It reduced labour mobility and limited one's professional horizons. There were many gripes among those assigned to tame the new beast.
The PC was thought of, at the beginning, as a sophisticated gaming machine, an electronic baby-sitter. As the presence of a keyboard was detected and as the professional horizon cleared it was thought of in terms of a glorified typewriter or spreadsheet. It was used mainly as a word processor (and its existence justified solely on these grounds). The spreadsheet was the first real application and it demonstrated the advantages inherent to this new machine (mainly flexibility and speed). Still, it was more (speed) of the same. A quicker ruler or pen and paper. What was the difference between this and a hand held calculator (some of them already had computing, memory and programming features)?
The PC was recognized as a medium only 30 years after it was invented with the introduction of multimedia software. All this time, the computer continued to spin off markets and secondary markets, needs and professional specialities. The talk as always was centred on how to improve on existing markets and solutions.
The Internet is the computer's first important breakthrough. Hitherto the computer was only quantitatively different - the multimedia and the Internet have made it qualitatively superior, actually, sui generis, unique.
This, precisely, is the ghost haunting the Internet:
It has been invented, is maintained and is operated by computer professionals. For decades these people have been conditioned to think in Olympic terms: more, stronger, higher. Not: new, unprecedented, non-existent. To improve - not to invent. They stumbled across the Internet - it invented itself despite its own creators.
Computer professionals (hardware and software experts alike) - are linear thinkers. The Internet is non linear and modular.
It is still the age of hackers. There is still a lot to be done in improving technological prowess and powers. But their control of the contents is waning and they are being gradually replaced by communicators, creative people, advertising executives, psychologists and the totally unpredictable masses who flock to flaunt their home pages.
These all are attuned to the user, his mental needs and his information and entertainment preferences.
The compact disc is a different tale. It was intentionally invented to improve upon an existing technology (basically, Edison's Gramophone). Market-wise, this was a major gamble: the improvement was, at first, debatable (many said that the sound quality of the first generation of compact discs was inferior to that of its contemporaneous record players). Consumers had to be convinced to change both software and hardware and to dish out thousands of dollars just to listen to what the manufacturers claimed was better quality Bach. A better argument was the longer life of the software (though contrasted with the limited life expectancy of the consumer, some of the first sales pitches sounded absolutely morbid).
The computer suffered from unclear positioning. The compact disc was very clear as to its main functions - but had a rough time convincing the consumers.
Every medium is first controlled by the technical people. Gutenberg was a printer - not a publisher. Yet, he is the world's most famous publisher. The technical cadre is joined by dubious or small-scale entrepreneurs and, together, they establish ventures with no clear vision, market-oriented thinking, or orderly plan of action. The legislator is also dumbfounded and does not grasp what is happening - thus, there is no legislation to regulate the use of the medium. Witness the initial confusion concerning copyrighted software and the copyrights of ROM embedded software. Abuse or under-utilization of resources grow. Recall the sale of radio frequencies to the first cellular phone operators in the West - a situation which repeats itself in Eastern and Central Europe nowadays.
But then more complex transactions - exactly as in real estate in "real life" - begin to emerge.
This distinction is important. While in real life it is possible to sell an undeveloped plot of land - no one will buy "pages". The supply of these is unlimited - their scarcity (and, therefore, their virtual price) is zero.
The second example involves the utilization of a site - rather than its mere availability.
A developer could open a site wherein first time authors will be able to publish their first manuscript - for a fee. Evidently, such a fee will be a fraction of what it would take to publish a "real life" book. The author could collect money for any downloading of his book - and split it with the site developer. The potential buyers will be provided with access to the contents and to a chapter of the books. This is currently being done by a few fledgling firms but a full scale publishing industry has not yet developed.
The Life of a Medium The internet is simply the latest in a series of networks which revolutionized our lives. A century before the internet, the telegraph, the railways, the radio and the telephone have been similarly heralded as "global" and transforming.
Every medium of communications goes through the same evolutionary cycle:
Anarchy
The Public Phase
At this stage, the medium and the resources attached to it are very cheap, accessible, under no regulatory constraints. The public sector steps in: higher education institutions, religious institutions, government, not for profit organizations, non governmental organizations (NGOs), trade unions, etc. Bedevilled by limited financial resources, they regard the new medium as a cost effective way of disseminating their messages.
The Internet was not exempt from this phase which ended only a few years ago. It started with a complete computer anarchy manifested in ad hoc networks, local networks, networks of organizations (mainly universities and organs of the government such as DARPA, a part of the defence establishment, in the USA). Non commercial entities jumped on the bandwagon and started sewing these networks together (an activity fully subsidized by government funds). The result was a globe encompassing network of academic institutions. The American Pentagon established the network of all networks, the ARPANET. Other government departments joined the fray, headed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which withdrew only lately from the Internet.
The Internet (with a different name) became semi-public property - with access granted to the chosen few.
Radio took precisely this course. Radio transmissions started in the USA in 1920. Those were anarchic broadcasts with no discernible regularity. Non commercial organizations and not for profit organizations began their own broadcasts and even created radio broadcasting infrastructure (albeit of the cheap and local kind) dedicated to their audiences. Trade unions, certain educational institutions and religious groups commenced "public radio" broadcasts.
The Commercial Phase
When the users (eg, listeners in the case of the radio, or owners of PCs and modems in the example of the Internet) reach a critical mass - the business sector is alerted. In the name of capitalist ideology (another religion, really) it demands "privatization" of the medium. This harps on very sensitive strings in every Western soul: the efficient allocation of resources which is the result of competition, corruption and inefficiency naturally associated with the public sector ("Other People's Money" - OPM), the ulterior motives of members of the ruling political echelons (the infamous American Paranoia), a lack of variety and of catering to the tastes and interests of certain audiences, the equation private enterprise = democracy and more.
The end result is the same: the private sector takes over the medium from "below" (makes offers to the owners or operators of the medium - that they cannot possibly refuse) - or from "above" (successful lobbying in the corridors of power leads to the appropriate legislation and the medium is "privatized").
Every privatization - especially that of a medium - provokes public opposition. There are (usually founded) suspicions that the interests of the public were compromised and sacrificed on the altar of commercialization and rating. Fears of monopolization and cartelization of the medium are evoked - and justified, in due time. Otherwise, there is fear of the concentration of control of the medium in a few hands. All these things do happen - but the pace is so slow that the initial fears are forgotten and public attention reverts to fresher issues.
A new Communications Act was legislated in the USA in 1934. It was meant to transform radio frequencies into a national resource to be sold to the private sector which will use it to transmit radio signals to receivers. In other words: the radio was passed on to private and commercial hands. Public radio was doomed to be marginalized.
The American administration withdrew from its last major involvement in the Internet in April 1995, when the NSF ceased to finance some of the networks and, thus, privatized its hitherto heavy involvement in the net.
A new Communications Act was legislated in 1996. It permitted "organized anarchy". It allowed media operators to invade each other's territories.
Phone companies will be allowed to transmit video and cable companies will be allowed to transmit telephony, for instance. This is all phased over a long period of time - still, it is a revolution whose magnitude is difficult to gauge and whose consequences defy imagination. It carries an equally momentous price tag - official censorship. "Voluntary censorship", to be sure, somewhat toothless standardization and enforcement authorities, to be sure - still, a censorship with its own institutions to boot. The private sector reacted by threatening litigation - but, beneath the surface it is caving in to pressure and temptation, constructing its own censorship codes both in the cable and in the internet media.
Institutionalization
This phase is the next in the Internet's history, though, it seems, unbeknownst to it.
It is characterized by enhanced activities of legislation. Legislators, on all levels, discover the medium and lurch at it passionately. Resources which were considered "free", suddenly are transformed to "national treasures not to be dispensed with cheaply, casually and with frivolity".
It is conceivable that certain parts of the Internet will be "nationalized" (for instance, in the form of a licensing requirement) and tendered to the private sector. Legislation will be enacted which will deal with permitted and disallowed content (obscenity? incitement? racial or gender bias?)
No medium in the USA (not to mention the wide world) has eschewed such legislation. There are sure to be demands to allocate time (or space, or software, or content, or hardware) to "minorities", to "public affairs", to "community business". This is a tax that the business sector will have to pay to fend off the eager legislator and his nuisance value.
All this is bound to lead to a monopolization of hosts and servers. The important broadcast channels will diminish in number and be subjected to severe content restrictions. Sites which will not succumb to these requirements - will be deleted or neutralized. Content guidelines (euphemism for censorship) exist, even as we write, in all major content providers (CompuServe, AOL, Geocities, Tripod, Prodigy).
The Bloodbath
This is the phase of consolidation. The number of players is severely reduced. The number of browser types will be limited to 2-3 (Netscape, Microsoft and which else?). Networks will merge to form privately owned mega-networks. Servers will merge to form hyper-servers run on supercomputers in "server farms". The number of ISPs will be considerably cut.
50 companies ruled the greater part of the media markets in the USA in 1983. The number in 1995 was 18. At the end of the century they will number 6.
This is the stage when companies - fighting for financial survival - strive to acquire as many users/listeners/viewers as possible. The programming is shallowed to the lowest (and widest) common denominator. Shallow programming dominates as long as the bloodbath proceeds.
From Rags to Riches
Tough competition produces four processes:
1 。 A Major Drop in Hardware Prices
This happens in every medium but it doubly applies to a computer-dependent medium, such as the Internet.
Computer technology seems to abide by "Moore's Law" which says that the number of transistors which can be put on a chip doubles itself every 18 months. As a result of this miniaturization, computing power quadruples every 18 months and an exponential series ensues. Organic-biological-DNA computers, quantum computers, chaos computers - prompted by vast profits and spawned by inventive genius will ensure the longevity and continued applicability of Moore's Law.
The Internet is also subject to "Metcalf's Law".
It says that when we connect N computers to a network - we get an increase of N to the second power in its computing / processing power. And these N computers are more powerful every year, according to Moore's Law.
The growth of computing powers in networks is a multiple of the effects of the two laws. More and more computers with ever increasing computing power get connected and create an exponential 16 times growth in the network's computing power every 18 months.
2 。 Free Availability of Software and Connection
This is prevalent in the Net where even potentially commercial software can be downloaded for free. In many countries television viewers still pay for television broadcasts - but in the USA and many other countries in the West, the basic package of television channels comes free of charge.
As users / consumers form a habit of using (or consuming) the software - it is commercialized and begins to carry a price tag. This is what happened with the advent of cable television: contents are sold for subscription and usage (Pay Per View - PPV) fees.
Gradually, this is what will happen to most of the sites and software on the Net. Those which survive will begin to collect usage fees, access fees, subscription fees, downloading fees and other, appropriately named, fees. These fees are bound to be low - but it is the principle that counts. Even a few cents per transaction will accumulate to hefty sums with the traffic which will characterize the Net (or, at least its more popular locales).
Adverising revenues will allow ISPs to offer free communication and storage volume. Gradually, connect time charges imposed by the phone companies will be eroded by tough competition from the likes of the cable companies. Accessing the internet might well be free of all charges in 10 years time.
3 。 Increased User Friendliness
As long as the computer is less user friendly and less reliable (predictable) than television - less of a black box - its potential (and its future) is limited. Television attracts 3.5 billion users daily. The Internet will attract - under the most exuberant scenario - less than one tenth of this number of people. The only reasons for this disparity are (the lack of) user friendliness and reliability. Even browsers, among the most user friendly applications ever - are not sufficiently so. The user still needs to know how to use a keyboard and must possess some basic acquaintance with the operating system.
The more mature the medium, the more friendly it becomes. Finally, it will be operated using speech or common language. There will be room left for user "hunches" and built in flexible responses.
4 。 Social Taxes
Sooner or later, the business sector has to mollify the God of public opinion by offerings of political and social nature. The Internet is an affluent, educated, yuppie medium. It necessitates a control of the English language, live interest in information and its various uses (scientific, commercial, other), a lot of resources (free time, money to invest in hardware, software and connect time). It empowers - and thus deepens the divide between the haves and have-nots, the knowing and the ignorant, the computer illiterate.
In short: the Internet is an elitist medium. Publicly, this is an unhealthy posture. "Internetophobia" is already discernible. People (and politicians) talk about how unsafe the Internet is and about its possible uses for racial, sexist and pornographic purposes. The wider public is in a state of awe.
So, site builders and owners will do well to begin to improve their image: provide free access to schools and community centres, bankroll internet literacy classes, freely distribute contents and software to educational institutions, collaborate with researchers and social scientists and engineers.
In short: encourage the view that the Internet is a medium catering to the needs of the community and the underprivileged, a mostly altruist endeavour. This also happens to make good business sense by educating a future generation of users. He who visited a site when a student, free of charge - will pay to do so when made an executive. Such a user will also pass on the information within and without his organization. This is called media exposure.
The future will, no doubt, witness public Internet terminals, subsidized ISP accounts, free Internet classes and an alternative "non-commercial, public" approach to the Net.
The Internet: Medium or Chaos?
There has never been a medium like the Internet. The way it has formed, the way it was (not) managed, its hardware-software-communications specifications - are all unique.
No Government
The Internet has no central (or even decentralized) structure. In reality, it hardly has a structure at all. It is a collection of 16 million computers (end 1996) connected through thousands of networks. There are organizations which purport to set Internet standards (like the aforementioned ISOC, or the domain setting ICANN) - but they are all voluntary organizations, with no binding legal, enforcement, or adjudication powers. The result is often mayhem.
Many erroneously call the Internet the first democratic medium. Yet, it hardly qualifies as a medium and by no stretch of terminology is it democratic. Democracy has institutions, hierarchies, order. The Internet has none of these things. There are some vague understandings as to what is and is not allowed. This is a "code of honour" (more reminiscent of the Sicilian Mob than of the British Parliament, let's say). Violations are punished by excommunication (of the violating site or person).
The Internet has culture - but no education. Freedom of Speech is entrenched. Members of this virtual community react adversely to ideas of censorship, even when applied to hard core porno. In 1999, hackers hacked major government sites following an FBI initiative against hacking-related crimes. Government initiatives (in the USA, in France, the lawsuit against the General Manager of AOL in Germany) are acutely criticized. In the meantime, the spirit of the Internet prevails: the small man's medium. What seems to be emerging, though, is self censorship by content providers (such as AOL and CompuServe).
Independence
The Internet is not dependent upon a given hardware or software. True, it is accessible only through computers and there are dominant browsers.
But the Internet accommodates any digital (bit transfer) platform. Internet will be incorporated in the future into portable computers, palmtops, PDAs, mobile phones, cable television, telephones (with voice interface), home appliances and even wrist watches. It will be accessible to all, regardless of hardware and software.
The situation is, obviously, different with other media. There is standard hardware (the television set, the radio receiver, the digital print equipment). Data transfer modes are standardized as well. The only variable is the contents - and even this is standardized in an age of American cultural imperialism. Today, one can see the same television programs all over the globe, regardless of cultural or geographical differences.
Here is a reasonable prognosis for the Internet:
It will "broadcast" (it is, of course, a PULL medium, not a PUSH medium - see next chapter) to many kinds of hardware. Its functions will be controlled by 2-5 very common software applications. But it will differ from television in that contents will continue to be decentralized: every point on the Net is a potential producer of content at low cost. This is the equivalent of producing a talk show using a single home video camera. And the contents will remain varied.
Naturally, marketing content (sites) will remain an expensive art. Sites will also be richer or poorer, in accordance with the investment made in them.
Non Linearity and Functional Modularity
The Internet is the first medium in human history that is non-linear and totally modular.
A television program is broadcast from a transmitter, through the airwaves to a receiver (=the television set). The viewer sits opposite this receiver and passively watches. This is an entirely linear process. The Internet is different:
When communicating through the Internet, there is no way to predict how the information will reach its destination. The routing of information through the network is completely random, very much like the principle governing the telephony system (but on a global scale). The latter is not a point-to-point linear network. Rather, it is a network of networks. Our voice is transmitted back and forth inside a gigantic maze of copper wires and optic fibres. It seeps through any available wire - until it reaches its destination.
It is the same with the Internet.
Information is divided to packets. An address is attached to each packet and - using the TCP/IP data transfer protocol - is dispatched to roam this worldwide labyrinth. But the path from one neighbourhood of London to another may traverse Japan.
The really ingenious thing about the Internet is that each computer (each receiver or end user) indeed burdens the system by imposing on it its information needs (as is the case with other media) - but it also assists in the task of pushing information packets on to their destinations. It seems that this contribution to the system outweighs the burdens imposed upon it.
The network has a growth potential which is always bigger than the number of its users. It is as though television sets assisted in passing the signals received by them to other television sets. Every computer which is a member of the network is both a message (content) and a medium (active information channel), both a transmitter and a receiver. If 30% of all computers on the Net were to crash - there will be no operational impact (there is enormous built in redundancy). Obviously, some contents will no longer be available (information channels will be affected).
The interactivity of this medium is a guarantee against the monopolization of contents. Anyone with a thousand dollars can launch his/her own (reasonably sophisticated) site, accessible to all other Internet users. Space is available through home page providers.
The name of the game is no longer the production - it is the creative content (design), the content itself and, above all, the marketing of the site.
The Internet is an infinite and unlimited resource. This goes against the grain of the most basic economic concept (of scarcity). Each computer that joins the Internet strengthens it exponentially - and tens of thousands join daily. The Internet infrastructure (maybe with the exception of communication backbones) can accommodate an annual growth of 100% to the year 2020. It is the user who decides whether to increase the Internet's infrastructure by connecting his computer to it. By comparison: it is as though it were possible to produce and to broadcast radio programmes from every radio receiver. Each computer is a combination of studio and transmitter (on the Internet).
In reality, there is no other interactive medium except the Internet. Cable TV does not allow two-way data transfer (from user to cable operator). If the user wants to buy a product - he has to phone. Interactive television is an abject failure (the Sony and TCI experiments were terminated). This all is notwithstanding the combining of the Internet with satellite capabilities (VSAT) or with the revenant digital television.
The television screen is inferior when compared to the computer screen. Only the Internet is there as a true two-way possibility. The technological problems that besieged it are slowly dissipating.
The Internet allows for one-dimensional and bi - dimensional interactivity.
One-dimensional interactivity: fill in and dispatch a form, send and receive messages (through e-mail or v-mail).
Two-dimensional interactivity: to talk to someone while both parties work on an application, to see your conversant, to talk to him and to transfer documents to him for his perusal as the conversation continues apace.
This is no longer science fiction. In less than five years this will be as common as the telephone - and it will have a profound effect on the traditional services provided by the phone companies. Internet phones, Internet videophones - they will be serious competitors and the phone companies are likely to react once they begin to feel the heat. This will happen when the Internet will acquire black box features. Phone companies, software giants and cable TV operators are likely to end up owning big chunks of the lucrative future market of the Net.
The Solitary Medium
The Internet is NOT a popular medium. It is the medium of affluent executives who fully master the English language, as part of a wider general education.
Alternatively, it is the medium of academia (students, lecturers), or of children of the former, well-to-do group. In any case, it is not the medium of the "wide public". It is also a highly individualistic medium.
The Internet was an initiative of the DOD (Department of Defence in the USA). It was later "requisitioned" by the National science Fund (NSF) in the USA. This continuous involvement of the administration came to an end in 1995 when the medium was "privatized".
This "privatization" was a recognition of the civilian roots of the Internet. It was - and is still being - formed by millions of information-intoxicated users. They formed networks to exchange bits and pieces of mutual interest. Thus, as opposed to all other media, the Internet was not invented, nor was its market. The inventors of the telephone, the telegraph, the radio, the television and the compact disc - all invented previously non-existent markets for their products. It took time, effort and money to convince consumers that they needed these "gadgets".
By contrast, the Internet was invented by its own consumers and so was the market for it. Only when the latter was fully forged did producers and businessmen join in. Microsoft began to hesitantly test the internet waters only in 1995!
On Line Memories
The Internet is the only medium with online memory, very much like the human brain. The memories of these two - the Net and the Brain - are immediately accessible. In both, it is stored in sites and in both, it does not grow old or is eliminated. It is possible to find sites which commemorate events the same way that the human mind registers them. This is Net Memory. The history of a site can be reviewed. The Library of Congress stores the consecutive development phases of sites. The Internet is an amazing combination of data processing software, data, a record of all the activities which took place in connection with the data and the memory of these records. Only the human brain is recalled by these capacities: one language serves all these functions, the language of the neurones.
There is a much clearer distinction even in computers (not to mention more conventional media, such as television).
Raw English - the Language of Raw Materials
The following - apparently trivial - observation is critical:
All the other media provide us with processed, censored, "clean" content.
The Internet is a medium of raw materials, partly well organized (the rough equivalent of a newspaper) - and partly still in raw form, yesterday's supper.
This is a result of the immediate and absolute access afforded each user: access to programming and site publishing tools - as well as access to computer space on servers. This leads to varying degrees of quality of contents and content providers and this, in turn, prevents monopolization and cartelization of the information supply channels.
The users of the Internet are still undecided: do they prefer drafts or newspapers. They frequent well designed sites. There are even design competitions and awards. But they display a preference for sites that are constantly updated (ie closer in their nature to a raw material - rather than to a finished product). They prefer sites from which they can download material to quietly process at home, alone, on their PCs, at their leisure.
Even the concept of "interactivity" points at a preference for raw materials with which one can interact. For what is interactivity if not the active involvement of the user in the creation of content?
The Internet users love to be involved, to feel the power in their fingertips, they are all addicted to one form of power or another.
Similarly, a car completely automatically driven and navigated is not likely to sell well. Part of the experience of driving - the sensation of power ("power stirring") - is critical to the purchase decision.
It is not in vain that the metaphor for using the Internet is "surfing" (and not, let's say, browsing).
The problem is that the Internet is still predominantly an English language medium (though it is fast changing). It discriminates against those whose mother tongue is different. All software applications work best in English. Otherwise they have to be adapted and fitted with special fonts (Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Russian and Chinese - each present a different set of problems to overcome). This situation might change with the attainment of a critical mass of users (some say, 2 million per non-Anglophone country).
Comprehensive (Virtual) Reality
This is the first (though, probably, not the last) medium which allows the user to conduct his whole life within its boundaries.
Television presents a clear division: there is a passive viewer. His task is to absorb information and subject it to minimal processing. The Internet embodies a complete and comprehensive (virtual) reality, a full fledged alternative to real life.
The illusion is still in its infancy - and yet already powerful.
The user can talk to others, see them, listen to music, see video, purchase goods and services, play games (alone or with others scattered around the globe), converse with colleagues, or with users with the same hobbies and areas of interest, to play music together (separated by time and space).
And all this is very primitive. In ten years time, the Internet will offer its users the option of video conferencing (possibly, three dimensional, holographic). The participants' figures will be projected on big screens. Documents will be exchanged, personal notes, spreadsheets, secret counteroffers.
Virtual Reality games will become reality in less time. Special end-user equipment will make the player believe that he, actually, is part of the game (while still in his room). The player will be able to select an image borrowed from a database and it will represent him, seen by all the other players. Everyone will, thus, end up invading everyone else's private space - without encroaching on his privacy!
The Internet will be the medium of choice for phone and videophone communication (including conferencing).
Many mundane activities will be done through Internet: banking, shopping for standard items, etc.
The above are examples to the Internet's power and ability to replace our reality in due time. A world out there will continue to exist - but, more and more we will interact with it through the enchanted interface of the Net.
A Brave New Net
The future of a medium in the making is difficult to predict. Suffice it to mention the ridiculous prognoses which accompanied the PC (it is nothing but a gaming gadget, it is a replacement for the electric typewriter, will be used only by business). The telephone also had its share of ludicrous statements: no one - claimed the "experts" would like to avoid eye contact while talking. Or television: only the Nazi regime seemed to have fully grasped its potential (in the Berlin 1936 Olympics). And Bill Gates thought that the internet has a very limited future as late as 1995!!!
Still, this medium has a few characteristics which differentiate it from all its predecessors. Were these traits to be continuously and creatively exploited - a few statements can be made about the future of the Net with relative assurance.
Time and Space Independence
This is the first medium in history which does not require the simultaneous presence of people in space-time in order to facilitate the transfer of information. Television requires the existence of studio technicians, narrators and others in the transmitting side - and the availability of a viewer in the receiving side. The phone is dependent on the existence of two or more parties simultaneously.
With time, tools to bridge the time gap between transmitter and receiver were developed. The answering machine and the video cassette recorder both accumulate information sent by a transmitter - and release it to a receiver in a different space and time. But they are discrete, their storage volume is limited and they do not allow for interaction with the transmitter.
The Internet does not have these handicaps.
It facilitates the formation of "virtual organizations / institutions / businesses/ communities". These are groups of users that communicate in different points in space and time, united by a common goal or interest.
A few examples:
The Virtual Advertising Agency
A budget executive from the USA will manage the account of a hi-tech firm based in Sydney. He will work with technical experts from Israel and with a French graphics office. They will all file their work (through the intranet) in the Net, to be studied by the other members of this virtual group. These will enter the right site after clearing a firewall security software. They will all be engaged in flexiwork (flexible working times) and work from their homes or offices, as they please. Obviously, they will all abide by a general schedule.
They will exchange audio files (the jingle, for instance), graphics, video, colour photographs and text. They will comment on each other's work and make suggestions using e-mail. The client will witness the whole creative process and will be able to contribute to it. There is no technological obstacle preventing the participation of the client's clients, as well.
Virtual Rock'n'Roll
It is difficult to imagine that "virtual performances will replace real life ones.
The mass rock concert has its own inimitable sounds, palette and smells. But a virtual production of a record is on the cards and it is tens of percents cheaper than a normal production. Again, the participants will interact through the Intranet. They will swap notes, play their own instruments, make comments by e-mail, play together using an appropriate software. If one of them is grabbed by inspiration in the middle of (his) night, he will be able to preserve and pass on his ideas through the Net. The creative process will be aided by novel applications which enable the simultaneous transfer of sound over the Net. The processes which are already digitized (the mix, for one) will pose no problem to a digitized medium. Other applications will let the users listen to the final versions and even ask the public for his preview opinion.
Thus, even creative processes which are perceived as demanding human presence - will no longer do so with the advent of the Net.
Perhaps it is easier to understand a Virtual Law Firm or Virtual Accountants Office.
In the extreme, such a firm will not have physical offices, at all. The only address will be an e-mail address. Dozens of lawyers from all over the world with hundreds of specialities will be partners in such an office. Such an office will be truly multinational and multidisciplinary. It will be fast and effective because its members will electronically swap information (precedents, decrees, laws, opinions, research and plain ideas or professional experience).
It will be able to service clients in every corner of the globe. It will involve the transfer of audio files (NetPhones), text, graphics and video (crucial in certain types of litigation). Today, such information is sent by post and messenger services. Whenever different types of information are to be analysed - a physical meeting is a must. Otherwise, each type of information has to be transferred separately, using unique equipment for each one.
Simultaneity and interactivity - this will be the name of the game in the Internet. The professional term is "Coopetition" (cooperation between potential competitors, using the Internet).
Other possibilities: a virtual production of a movie, a virtual research and development team, a virtual sales force. The harbingers of the virtual university, the virtual classroom and the virtual (or distance) medical centre are here.
The Internet - Mother of all Media
The Internet is the technological solution to the mythological "home entertainment centre" debate.
It is almost universally agreed that, in the future, a typical home will have one apparatus which will give it access to all types of information. Even the most daring did not talk about simultaneous access to all the types of information or about full interactivity.
The Internet will offer exactly this: access to every conceivable type of information simultaneously , the ability to process them at the same time and full interactivity. The future image of this home centre is fairly clear - it is the timing that is not. It is all dependent on the availability of a wide (information) band - through which it will be possible to transfer big amounts of data at high speeds, using the same communications line. Fast modems were coupled with optic fibres and with faulty planning and vision of future needs. The cable television industry, for instance, is totally technologically unprepare |
|
|
|
