The Future of the Internet

The Future of the Internet
Concept by Mac Funamizu, http://petitinvention.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/future-of-internet-search-mobile-version/

source: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/slash/iA_WebTrends_2007_2_1600x1024.gif

From Mindwest Strategies (http://mindwest.net/)

History

Evolution
Arpanet (as of 1983)and NSFNet (1985): TCP/IP networks for research and development
NSFNet opened to other networks, esp. mail (1988)
World Wide Web via HTML and HTTP (1989-1991)

Evolution of Applications
Email, Newsgroups, IRC chat, instant messaging for communication
FTP for moving data
Archie, Veronica, WAIS for finding data
World Wide Web for presentation/display
Altavista, then Google, for finding data on the web
Content Management Systems for publishing
Blogs and Wikis for sharing information
Social Networks for finding others, connecting, sustaining connection, sharing media and data

What’s been changing
Broadband: higher speeds
Adoption: more people online
Everything is miscellaneous: information explodes, “wants to be free” and findable
Skype (et al) vs distance: cheap, immediate communication
Post-Broadcast: Hulu/BitTorrent/Netflix vs television
Politics: Grassroots Adhocracies, Tea Party, Egypt and the Middle East
Mobility: the world in your pocket, augmented reality

~ Pew Internet
http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2010/Nov/Opportunity-Online.aspx

Effects
Network effect: everybody gets your email; the Internet becomes exponentially more useful and productive
Down side: Unmanageable deluge of useful information
Even more unmanageable deluge of useLESS information - spam and noise (~90% of email is spam)
The Internet grows more valuable, and “money changes everything”

Future

Scenarios: Network
Internet: Free and open network of networks, end to end principle, “dumb network.” Facilitated by Freedom Box?
Cable television: limited selections delivered with a high quality of service. Relatively high barrier to entry on the content side
Balkanized hybrid: walled gardens and pay walls plus low-bandwidth, lower-value everything else; providers and users pay for higher QoS

Network Neutrality
“Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a buzzword used to describe a principle proposed for users' access to networks participating in the Internet. The principle advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality

For less than $1,000, he could get his idea onto the Internet. He needed no permission from the network provider. He needed no clearance from Harvard to offer it to Harvard students. Neither with Yale, or Princeton, or Stanford. Nor with every other community he invited in. Because the platform of the Internet is open and free, or in the language of the day, because it is a “neutral network,” a billion Mark Zuckerbergs have the opportunity to invent for the platform. And though there are crucial partners who are essential to bring the product to market, the cost of proving viability on this platform has dropped dramatically. You don’t even have to possess Zuckerberg’s technical genius to develop your own idea for the Internet today. Websites across the developing world deliver high quality coding to complement the very best ideas from anywhere. This is a platform that has made democratic innovation possible—and it was on the Facebook platform resting on that Internet platform that another Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, organized the most important digital movement for Obama, and that the film’s petty villain, Sean Parker, organized Causes, one of the most important tools to support nonprofit social missions.
~ Larry Lessig

How should we experience the Internet? Should our Interface with the world and its data be owned and controlled by corporations? Or public? Or distributed?
What does it mean for a Facebook or Google to “own” a network effect, personal data for whole populations, core interface and infrastructure?

Freedom Box: a “privacy appliance” proposed by attorney and free software proponent EbenMoglen. A personal server running a free software operating system, with free applications designed to create and preserve personal privacy.

Questions
Identity: who has a right to your data? How do you manage the manifestation and use of your identity online?
Power: who has authority for a relationship? Example: vendor/customer – who has a right to manage the relationship?
Abundance: how do you manage information and sustain an accurate world perspective with literally millions of potential information channels?

Scenarios: Applications
Many distributed sites, platforms, and applications, open architectures, data portability
Mobile and targeted applications
Recasting the stockpile of information in usable form (Doug Imbruce in Newsweek, “The Wild, Wild Web”) – Qwiki / Curated information experience: machines filter and present content
Facebook/Twitter and Google rule: people filter, find, and present content (with help from search tools)

Scenarios: TechnoUtopian?
DIY home, media environment, life
Empowered patient
Empowered citizen
Sustainable communities
Networked transportation
Noosphere (global consciousness)
Singularity/Superintelligence

Jon Lebkowsky
jon@plutopiaproductions.com
http://plutopiaproductions.com
http://weblogsky.com
http://polycotassociates.com

http://pollner.posterous.com	535
http://weblogsky.com	152
http://paper.li	9
http://www.claudepenland.com	7
http://posterous.com	3
http://twitter.com	2

The Future of the Internet

by Jon Lebkowsky on Feb 24, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

6 Embeds 708

Statistics

The Future of the Internet — Presentation Transcript