A talk to the Masters in Design students at IIT Bombay. The brief was to sensitize these students on the impact the Internet is making on print and traditional media. Made in 2009.

1. The evolution of the Internet
& it’s impact on print & other
media
Rohit Varma
M.Design (Visual Communication), Sem. 3 students
Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay
29.10.09

2. One of the pillars on which the
Internet rests is digital data.

3. Being Digital*
Data => “bits”
Why digitize :
- data compression e.g. video
- error correction e.g TV, radio, telephone
- bits can be moved around & commingled =>
consumed differently
Fibre optics allows transfer @ Gigabits / sec
*From the book “Being Digital” ,Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media
Lab, 1995

4. Being Digital : Implications
Geography does not matter
Data can be stored, time does not matter
High volume bits => power shifts to the
user
High volume bits => User Interface will
have to evolve
Concerns : Piracy, privacy, data theft,
digital vandalism…

5. Internet : a history

6. By means of electricity, the world of matter
has become a great nerve, vibrating
nerve,
thousands of miles in a breathless point of
time ... The round globe is a vast ... brain,
brain,
instinct with intelligence!"
intelligence!"

7. The Sputnik, 1957
The surprise launch of Sputnik by Russia caused President Eisenhower to launch the
Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, that gave rise to the Internet

8. Internet : An outcome of military
and scientific research
Defence needs : ARPANET, to withstand
enemy missile attacks, 1960s
Science research lab CERN
- Internet protocols : TCP/IP ‘83-’84,
‘83-
- First Web servers and client m/c, ‘90
- WWW invented to exchange papers with
scientists of other labs, ’91
Internet sector in India privatized ‘98

9. Three things needed to get
Internet going.. Access,
devices, content

10. Access
Over 1.6 billion* Net (PC access) users
worldwide
India has 50 million^ users
Broadband penetration & speeds going up
Access via mobile going up : is the future
of Internet access
* Internetworldstats.com
^ my estimate, conservative

11. Devices
Servers, PCs, laptops, netbooks,
smartphones, iPhones, mobile phones,
tablet PCs, thin-client PCs, gaming
thin-
consoles,..

12. Content
230 million* + websites worldwide
What’s hot items : Video, Social media,
Search
Indian languages use has not grown
Worldwide, language growth is forecast
* Netcraft, Sep ‘09

13. Some industries impacted by the Net
Advertising, auctions, auto, banking, bill
payments, classifieds, DVD rental,
education, financial services, gaming,
governance, jobs, libraries, matrimonial,
music, news, photography, politics, real
estate, retail, shopping, stock trading,
telephony, travel, ticketing..
Q. : Which got impacted first & why ?

14. Some reasons why
Where there is a high direct sales cost
e.g. encyclopaedia
Where cost of physical distribution high
e.g. newspapers, music, tickets
Where the cost of information is high
e.g. health care (U.S.)

15. What do people use the Internet for ?
Communication
Information
Commerce
Entertainment
Q. : Which two uses dominate ?

16. The 3 Cs of the Internet
Content => Community => Commerce
One leads to the other

17. Why is the Internet important ?
It has both reach and richness
Reach :
Already reaches ~ 2 billion people
Richness :
A combination of
- bandwidth
- interactivity
- customization / personalization
This has profound implications..

18. Which applications are more in
use in India, the U.S. & China &
why ?

19. Useful things every working
professional should know
(about the Internet)
How do people ‘consume’
Internet content (vis-à-vis other media) ?
(vis-
What is ‘the long tail’ ?
What is (the big deal about) Web 2.0 ?
What does it cost to be present
on the web ?

20. Internet’s impact on print and
other media

21. U.S. newspaper circulation
Q. Why did
circulation
decline ?

22. How are these media evolving ?
Newspapers
Encyclopaedia
Music
Movies
Graphic Design !
Printing

23. How are books evolving !
Amazon.com
Digital libraries
Google Book Search
Mobile learning
Flexbooks (a.k.a. transbooks)
e-Readers

24. The Kindle (in
India this
Nov.)

25. Sure looks
good !

27. Q&A
Rohit Varma
rohit@interskale.in
http://marketerskaleidoscope.com
http://twitter.com/rohitvarma