The Web: evolution and perspective

May 12, 2014
University of Milano Bicocca
URBEUR-QUASI PhD Programme
Internet today:
problems and
perspectives
Roberto Polillo
Department of Informatics, Systems and Communications
University of Milano Bicocca

Topics
 A (very) short history of the Web
A summary of the milestones / paradigms of the
evolution of the Web: 1990-today
 A (very) short discussion of the driving forces
A summary of market mechanisms that drive the
growth of the Web online services, and resulting
problems
R.Polillo - March 2015

The evolution of the Web
 From the first Web site (1991), the Web is
continuously growing and changing its nature
 In parallel, telephony is drastically changed
(fixed → mobile)
 Drivers of this evolution: tecnology, market,
people behaviour

Changing Internet paradigms
1995+
 Corporate sites
 Web portals
 Search engines
 E-commerce
 Web as an interface
 ….
HYPERTEXT,
eCOMMERCE
2005+
 Blogs
 Social networks
 UGC
 Cooperative
creation
 Sharing
 Reusable contents
 …
SOCIAL MEDIA
1985
+
 E-mail
 File transfer
 Newsgroups
 ….
COMMUNICATION
NETWORK

2015+
MOBILE WEB
 Mobile devices
 Cloud computing
 Geolocalization
 Camera phone
 Augmented reality
 Electronic wallet
Mobile devices
Desktop + laptop
Worldwide installed base

2015+
MOBILE WEB
 Mobile devices
 Cloud computing
 Geolocalization
 Camera phone
 Augmented reality
 Electronic wallet
2020+
INTERNET OF THINGS

ICT is pervasive

Internet traffic growth (World)
http://gizmodo.com/5614841
/
web
video
p2p

Web 1.0
MS Explorer
Amazon
eBay
IPO Netscape
1990 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2000 2001
2002
First web site
at
CERN
W3C
Netscape Navigator
Yahoo
Mosaic
Google
Mozilla
Napster
Paypal

Narrowband connection

Web 1.0 Typical applications
 Corporate Web sites
 Portals and search engines
 eCommerce
 [Corporate portals]

Web 1.0 main success stories
 http://www.amazon.com from 1995
Current size:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=amazon.com
 http://www.ebay.com from 1995
Current size:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ebay.com
 http://www.yahoo.com
from 1994, always among the first 5 more visited sites

IPO (Initial Public Offering) frenzy
 dot.com frenzy started by Netscape IPO (Aug 9, 1995)
 Founded 18 months earlier
 16 M$ revenues, no profit
 Market cap at IPO: 1 B$ (!)
 Large venture capital, to bring startups to IPO
 Many irrealistic business models
 NASDAQ bubble, then fall (2000-2001)
 Silicon Valley stops completely

The "dot.com bubble”
MS Explorer
Amazon
eBay
IPO Netscape
1990 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2000 2001
2002
First web
site at
CERN
W3C
Netscape Navigator
Yahoo
Mosaic
Google
Mozilla
Napster
Paypal
Max
NASDAQ
9/11
Min
NASDAQ
Nasdaq Composite Index
March 10 2000:
index at 5132
March 10 2000:
index at 5132
Oct 9 2002:
index at 1114
Oct 9 2002:
index at 1114

Web 2.0 key aspects
Social media:
Not the hypertext pages, but the user is the leading actor
 User interaction throu the Web: one-to-many (blog), many-to-many
(social media)
 Services to host User Generated Content (UGC), to be shared with other
users
 Collective creation
 User rating in e-commerce
 "Market are conversations" (Cluetrain manifesto, 1999-2000)
The Web as a computing platform:
 Online services, virtualization
 Perpetuale beta
 Component and service mashups
 Rich Internet Applications (RIA) technologies

Web 2.0
2000 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12
Twitter,
Slideshare,
Scribd
Google
DocsYouTube
,
Joomla,
NingFlickr,
Facebook
Skype
WordPress
Blogger
LinkedIn iPhone
Groupon
Android,
Dropbox
Foursquar
e
WhatsApp
iPad,
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
Wikipedi
a
(In red start of mobile
Web)
Internet
traffic
video

Xmas 2006
Media acknowledge the paradigm change

Another bubble?
Netscape IPO
Google IPO
Aug 19 2004
LinkedIn IPO
(NYSE)
Facebook IPO
Twitter IPO
(NYSE)
199
4
199
5
199
7
199
6
March 10 2000:
5049
(Indice Nasdaq 1994-2013)

In the meanwhile, telephony changes…

FirstW
eb
site
atCERN
M
osaic
(N
CSA)
W
3C;N
etscape
N
avigator
Netscape
IPO
,,M
S
Explorer,Am
azon,eBay
Boom
and
fallofNASD
AQ
G
oogle
IPO
;Facebook
91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 0990 10 11 12
WEB 1.0 WEB 2.0crisisPre-history
G
oogle
founded
9/11;W
ikipedia
Financialcrisi
iPhone,Android
Tw
itter
iPad
FB
IPO
Nasdaq Composite Index
YouTube
Internet
traffic
video

SMS
2 G
Nokia
5110
GSM (candybar)
SMS, watch, sveglia,
rubrica, calcolatrice,
rubrica, giochi, suonerie
MMS
WAP
2.5 G
Motorola
V3 RAZR
"Feature phone"
GPRS (candybar,
clamshell) +
MMS,,photocamera,
email, (Internet)
Touch phone
iPhone
+ multitouch,
sensors, GPS,
app, …
3 G
Blackberry
"Smartphone"
+ alphanumeric kb,
PDA, video, GPS,
radio, MP3, OS, …Mobile telephony
TIM,
Omnitel
FirstW
eb
site
atCERN
M
osaic
(N
CSA)
W
3C;N
etscape
N
avigator
Netscape
IPO
,,M
S
Explorer,Am
azon,
Boom
and
fallofNASD
AQ
G
oogle
IPO
;Facebook
91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 0990 10 11 12G
oogle
founded
9/11;W
ikipedia
Financialcrisi
iPhone,Android
Tw
itter
iPad
FB
IPO
YouTube R.Polillo - March 2015

IP telephony
 Skype
 Internet based video-telephony, free
 Starting 2003, acquired by eBay in 2005, then by
Microsoft in 2011 (8,5 B$)
 2012: 700 ml accounts; one third of all international
calls pass through Skype
 Jan 2013: 50 ml concurrent users
 WhatsApp
 Free SMS via IP
 Started in 2009, acquired by Facebook in 2014 (19 B$)

Mobile cellular subscriptions
(total and per 100 inhabitants)

Apple iPhone and iPad
2007 2010

Android
 Linux based mobile OS
 Initially developed by Android Inc., acquired by Google
in 2005
 Open-source
 First android phone: end 2008
 Today the largest market share for mobile OS

Camera eyes: QRCODE

Augmented reality

But we cannot do everything with a
small, portable device…
Mobile
and
cloud
com
puting
are
strongly
related
CLOUD
Tks Lara Ciccarelli per i disegni R.Polillo - March 2015

And now…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErpNpR3XYUw apr 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNATuCkRWFE feb 2013

Smart watches

Network effects
More users of a service → more attractive the
service ("positive externalities")
Examples:
•Telephone
•Sms
•Skype
•Facebook
•WhatsApp
•….

Penetration of fixed telephony in the USA

Penetration of social media
http://b.qr.ae/10CAu
AB
Instagra
m
(approx)

Facebook
http://thinksocialmedia.com/tag/growth/

Positive externalities: consequences
 The number of subscribers of services based on networks
can grow extremely fast
 When there are many subscribers, they may accept to pay
an higher price for the service
 Typical example: a service is initially free to grow the user
base, then paid

Positive feedback
If a product / service with positive externalities gains a larger market
share with respect to its competitor, it will obtain larger and larger
market shares, toward the 100% market share
W.Brian Arthur, “Increasing Returns and
Path
Dependence in the Economy”, 1994
« For whoever has
will be given more,
and they will have an
abundance. Whoever
does not have, even
what they have will
be taken from
them. »
Matthew, 25-
29
Positive feedback,
"Law of increasing
returns",
"Winner takes all"

http://bit.ly/VIIoX1
Product with
positive
externalities
Product
without
externalities

Consequences
 First mover advantage: he who gains market shares before his
competitor has a very large competitive advantage
 Butterfly effect: the success of a technology may depend on
fortuitous facts which afford small advantages at the beginning,
which start an "avalanche effect" which may have nothing to do
with its technical qualities
 Standard de facto: computer industry is dominated by de-facto
standards dictated by first movers (de-iure standards aften fail)

Example: Facebook vs Myspace

Growth: from linear to exponential
t

Internet "Big Five"
(born 1975)
Devices,
Apps &
content
(born 1998)
Ads
(born1975)
Software
(born 1994)
e-
commerce
(born 2004)
Ads ←Main Business
Data at Nov 2014,
(previous12 months)
Source: Wolframalpha
4
0
2
1
1
3
3
BillionUSD

The myth of free services
 The prevalence of business models in which it is not
evident who pays for what
 N-side markets
"There is no free lunch
The question is how you are paying it
and if you are willing to do it"
Anonymous

Business models based on advertising
Product / service
Google,
Facebook, …
Google,
Facebook, …
User info
Subscriber
s
Targeted
ads
Online
service
s

Some conclusions
Where are we now and where are we
going?

The two sides of the net

The two sides of the net - 1
Free services
The end of the privacy”
We stop paying with money, but withinformation about ourselves
The citizen as a consumer

Every information
at our fingertips
…. but unreliable”
“The distinction between trained experts and uninformed amateurs
becomes dangerously blurred, truth becomes a commodity to be bought,
sold, packaged and reinvented “ (A.Keen)

Individualized
assistance
The “filter bubble””
The variety of information is reduced by filtering algorithms,
which filter away what we and our social network do not "like”
“Imagine a world where you never discover new ideas” (E.Parisier)

Freedom of
expression
Ease of control”
Our opinions can be easily monitored
E.g. E.Snowden case

Augmented
socialization
Social interaction overload
500 ml photos shared daily on Facebook
The “dictatorship” of notification systems
”

Powerful
cognitive
augmentation
Unknown cognitive reshaping ”
“Is Google making us stupid?” (N.Carr)

The quality
of access
The end of the “net neutrality””
What we access online may be regulated and filtered
by complex, multi-sided market agreements

The rapid growth
of technological
innovation
Job loss
“The effect of today’s technology on tomorrow’s jobs will be immense
– and no country is ready for it” (The Economist, Jan 2014)

It is a difficult world, take care
of it!

Thank you!
www.rpolillo.it

Esempio: i servizi Web da inizio secolo
2000 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12
PayPal
Twitter,
Slideshare,
Scribd
YouTube
,
Joomla,
NingFlickr,
Facebook
Skype,
WordPress,
LinkedIn
iPhone
Android,
Dropbox
WhatsApp
iPad,
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
Google
Drive
Social
Web
Mobile
Web
Web 1.0

The Web: evolution and perspective

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