Internet : A Medium or a Message

An Interim Report just about the Futurity of the Computer network

Who are the participants who constitute the Internet?

Users - connected to the net and interacting with it

The communications lines and the communications instrumentality

The intermediaries (e.g. the suppliers of on-line information or access providers).

Hardware manufacturers

Software system authors and manufacturers (browsers, site development tools, specific applications, smart agents, search engines and others).

The "Hitchhikers" (search engines, smart agents, Artificial Intelligence - AI - tools and more)

Content producers and providers

Suppliers of fiscal wherewithal (currently - corporate and institutional cash bit by bit being replaced by advertising money)

The fate of each of these components - individually and in commonality - wish determine the fate of the Internet.

The 1st phase of the Internet's history was dominated by computer wizards. Thus, any attempt at predicting its futurity dealt chiefly with its hardware and software system components.

Media experts, sociologists, psychologists, advertising and marketing executives were left out of the collective effort to determine the futurity face of the Internet.

As far as content is concerned, the Computer network cannot be presently defined as a medium. It does not function as one - rather it is a really disordered library, mostly incorporating the writings of non-distinguished megalomaniacs. It is the ultimate Egotistic experience. The forceful entry of publication houses and content aggregators is ever-changing this dismal landscape, though.

Ever since the invention of television there hasn't been thing as beggary to become a medium as the Internet.

Three analogies spring to mind once contemplating the Computer network in its current state:

A chaotic library

A neural network or the latter day equivalent of previous networks (telegraph, telephony, railways)

A new continent

These metaphors prove to be really useful (even business-wise). They permit us to define the commercial opportunities embedded in the Internet.

Yet, they fail to assist us in predicting its futurity in its transformation into a medium.

How does an invention become a medium? What happens to it once it does become one? What is the thin line separating the initial functioning of the invention from its transformation into a new medium? In another words: once can we tell that several technological advance gave birth to a new medium?

This activity besides deals with the pictures of the Computer network once changed into a medium.

The Computer network has the most unusual attributes in the history of media.

It has no central structure or organization. It is hardware and software system independent. It (almost) cannot be subjected to legislation or to regulation. Consider the example of downloading music from the computer network - is it equivalent to an act of recording music (a violation of copyright laws)? This has been the crux of the legal battle between Diamond Multimedia system (the manufacturers of the Rio MP3 device), MP3.com and Napster and the recording industry in America.

The Internet's data remove channels are not linear - they are random. Most of its "broadcast" cannot be "received" at all. It allows for the narrowest of narrowcasting through the use of e-mail mailing lists, discussion groups, message boards, private radio stations, and chats. And this is but a small portion of an impressive list of oddities. These idiosyncrasies wish besides shape the nature of the Computer network as a medium. Growing out of eccentric roots - it is bound to yield strange fruit as a medium.

So what business opportunities does the Computer network represent?

I believe that they are to be found in two broad categories:

Software system and hardware related to the Internet's futurity as a medium

Content creation, management and licencing

The Map of Terra Internetica

The Users

How galore Computer network users are there? How galore of them have access to the Web (World Wide Web - WWW) and use it? There are no unequivocal statistics. Those who presume to give the answers (including the ISOC - the Computer network SOCiety) - trust on really partial and biased resources. Others just bluff.

Yet, everyone seems to agree that there are, at least, 100 million active participants in North America (the Nielsen and Commerce-Net reports).

The futurity is, inevitably, even as more vague than the present. Authoritative practice firms predict 66 million active users in 10 years time. IBM envisages 700 million users. MCI is more modest with 300 million. At the end of 1999 there were 130 million registered (though not necessarily active) users.

The Computer network - an Moralist and Flag-waving Medium

The average user of the Computer network is young (30), with an academic background and high income. The percentage of the educated and the well-to-do among the users of the Web is three times as high as their proportion in the population. This is fast ever-changing only because their children are connection them (6 million already had access to the Computer network at the end of 1996 - and were joined by another 24 million by the end of the decade). This may change only due to presidential initiatives to bridge the "digital divide" (from Al Gore's in the USA to Mahatir Mohammed's in Malaysia), corporate largesse and institutional involvement (e.g., Open Society in Eastern Europe, Microsoft in the USA). These efforts wish spread the benefits of this all-powerful tool among the less privileged. A bit less than 50% of all users are men but they are responsible for 60% of the activity in the net (as measured by traffic).

Women seem to limit themselves to electronic mail (e-mail) and to electronic buying of goods and services, although this is ever-changing fast. Men prefer information, either due to career requirements or because cognition is power.

Most of the users are of the "experiencer" variety. They are leaders of societal change and innovative. This breed inhabits universities, fashionable neighbourhoods and voguish vocations. This is why several wonder if the Computer network is not just another fad, albeit an improbably resilient and promising one.

Most users have house access to the Computer network - yet, they still prefer to access it from work, at their employer's expense, although this preference is slight and being eroded. Most users are, therefore, exploitatory in nature. Still, we must not forget that there are 37 million households of the self-employed and this possibly distorts the applied mathematics image somewhat.

The Computer network - A Western Development

Not African, not Asian (with the exception of Israel and Japan), not Russian , nor a Third Earth phenomenon. It belongs squarely to the wealthy, gorged world. It is the indulgence of those who have everything and whose greatest concern is their choice of nightly entertainment. Between 50-60% of all Computer network users live in the USA, 5-10% in Canada. The Computer network is catching on in Europe (mainly in Deutschland and in Scandinavia) and, in its mobile form (i-mode) in Japan. The Computer network lost to the French Minitel because the latter provides more topically relevant content and because of high cost of communications and hardware.

Communications

Most computer owners still possess a 28,800 bps modem. This is more like drive a bicycle on a German Autobahn. The 56,600 bps is bit by bit replacement its slower precursor (48% of computers with modems) - but even as this is hardly sufficient. To begin to enjoy video and audio (especially the former) - data remove rates need to be 50 times faster.

Half the households in the USA have at least 2 telephones and one of them is normally dedicated to data process (faxes or fax-modems).

The ISDN could constitute the mid-term solution. This data remove network is fairly speedy and covers 70% of the territory of the USA. It is growing by 100% annually and its sales flat-top 10 billion USD in 1995/6.

Unfortunately, it is quite clean that ISDN is not THE answer. It is too slow, too user-unfriendly, has a bad interface with another network types, it requires special hardware. There is no point in investment in temporary solutions once the right resolution is staring the Computer network in the face, although it is not enforced due to political circumstances.

A cable electronic equipment is 80 times speedier than the ISDN and 700 times faster than a 14,400 bps modem. However, it does have problems in accommodating a two-way data transfer. There is besides need to connect the fibre optic infrastructure which characterizes cable companies to the old copper coaxal infrastructure which characterizes telephony. Cable users engage specially custom-made LANs (Ethernet) and the hardware is big-ticket (though instrumentality prices are forecast to collapse as demand increases). Cable companies just did not invest in developing the technology. The law (prior to the 1996 Communications Act) forbade them to do thing that was not one way remove of video via cables. Now, with the more liberal regulative environment, it is a mere question of time until the technology is found.

Actually, most consumers single out bad client relations as their biggest problem with the cable companies - rather than technology.

Experiments conducted with cable modems led to a doubling of usage time (from an average of 24 to 47 hours per month per user) which was entirely ascribable to the accrued speed. This comes close to a cultural revolution in the allocation of leisure time. Numerically speaking: 7 million households in the USA are fitted with a two-way data remove cable modems. This is a small number and it is anyone's guess if it constitutes a critical mass. Sales of such modems amount to 1.3 billion USD annually.

50% of all cable subscribers besides have a PC at home. To me it seems that the merging of the two technologies is inevitable.

Other technological solutions - such as DSL, ADSL, and the more promising satellite broadband - are being developed and implemented, albeit slowly and inefficiently. Coverage is discontinuous and frustrating waiting periods are measured in months.

Hardware and Software system

Most Computer network users (82%) activity with the Windows operational system. Simply just about 11% own a Macintosh (much stronger diagrammatically and more user-friendly). Only 7% continue to activity on Operating system based systems (which, historically, fathered the Internet) - and this number is fast declining. A strong entrant is the free source Unix operational system.

Virtually all users surf through a browsing software. A fast dwindling minority (26%) use Netscape's products (mainly Navigator and Communicator) and the majority use Microsoft's Adventurer (more than 60% of the market). Browsers are now free products and can be downloaded from the Internet. As late as 1997, it was foreseen by major Computer network practice firms that browser sales wish top $4 billion by the year 2000. Such misguided predictions neglected the basic attribute of the Internet: free products, free content, free access.

Browsers are in for a great transformation. Most of them are likely to have 3-D, advanced audio, telephone / voice / video mail (v-mail), instant messaging, e-mail, and video conferencing capabilities integrated into the same browsing session. They wish become self-customizing, intelligent, Computer network interfaces. They wish memorise the history of usage and user preferences and adapt themselves accordingly. They wish allow content-specificity: elusive smart agents wish scour the Internet, do recommendations, compare prices, order goods and services and customize contents in line with self-adjusting user profiles.

Two important technological developments must be considered:

PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) - the ultimate personal (and office) communicators, easy to carry, they provide Computer network (access) Everywhere, independent of suppliers and providers and of physical infrastructure (in an aeroplane, in the field, in a cinema).

The second trend: wireless data remove and wireless e-mail, whether through pagers, cellular phones, or through more sophisticated apparatus and hybrids such as smart phones. Geotech's products are an first-class example: e-mail, faxes, telephone calls and a connection to the Computer network and to other, public and corporate, or proprietary, databases - all provided by the same gadget. This is the embodiment of the electronic, physically detached, office. Wearable computing should be considered a part of this "ubiquitous or pervasive computing" wave.

We have no way of gauging - or showing intelligence guess - the part of the mobile Computer network in the total futurity Computer network market but it is likely to outweigh the "fixed" part. Wireless computer network meshes well with the trend of pervasive computing and the intelligent house and office. Family gadgets such as microwave ovens, refrigerators and so on wish connect to the computer network via a wireless interface to cull data, remove information, order goods and services, report their condition and perform basic maintenance functions. Location specific services (navigation, buying recommendations, special discounts, deals and sales, emergency services) depend on the technological confluence between GPS (stallite-based geolocation technology) and wireless Internet.

Suppliers and Intermediaries

"Parasitic" intermediaries occupy each stage in the Internet's food chain.

Access to the Computer network is still provided by "dumb pipes" - the Computer network Service Providers (ISP)

Content is still the preserve of content suppliers and so on.

Some of these intermediaries are doomed to bit by bit fade or to suffer a substantial decreasing of their share of the market. Even as "walled gardens" of content (such as AOL) are at risk.

By way of comparison, even as today, ISPs have four times as galore subscribers (worldwide) as AOL. Admittedly, this adversely affects the quality of the Computer network - the infrastructure maintained by the phone companies is slow and often succumbs to bottlenecks. The unequivocal intention of the telephone giants to become major players in the Computer network market should besides be taken into account. The phone companies will, thus, play a dual role: they wish provide access to their infrastructure to their competitors (sometimes, inside a real or actual monopoly) - and they wish vie with their clients. The same can be aforesaid just about the cable companies. Dominant the last mile to the user's abode is the next big business of the Internet. Companies such as AOL are deprived by these trends. It is imperative for AOL to obtain equal access to the cable company's backbone and infrastructure if it wants to survive. Therefore its merger with Time Warner.

No wonder that galore of the ISPs judge this intrusion on their turf by the phone and cable companies to constitute unfair competition. Yet, one should not forget that the barriers to entry are really low in the ISP market. It takes a borderline investment to become an ISP. 200 modems (which cost 200 USD each) are enough to satisfy the inevitably of 2000 average users who generate an financial gain of 500,000 USD per year to the ISP. Routers are equally as cheap nowadays. This is a good return on the ISP's capital, undoubtedly.

The Hitchhikers

The Web houses the equivalent of 100 billion pages. Search Engine applications are used to locate specific information in this impressive, perpetually proliferating library. They wish be replaced, in the near future, by "Knowledge Structures" - mammoth encyclopaedias, whose text wish contain references (hyperlinks) to other, relevant, sites. The far futurity wish witness the emergence of the "Intelligent Archives" and the "Personal Newspapers" (read further for elaborate explanations). Several software system applications wish summarize content, others wish index and mechanically reference and link texts (virtual bibliographies). An average user wish have an on-going interest in 500 sites. Special software system wish be needful to manage address books ("bookmarks", "favourites") and contents ("Intelligent Addressbooks"). The development of search engines dedicated to search a number of search engines at the same time wish grow ("Hyper- or meta- engines"). Meta-engines wish activity in the background and remove hyperlinks and advertising (the latter is essential to secure the fiscal interest of site developers and owners). Applied mathematics software system which tracks ("how long was what done"), monitors ("what did they do piece in the site") and counts ("how many") visitors to sites already exists. Several of these applications have back-office facilities (accounting, follow-up, collections, even as tele-marketing). They all provide time trails and several allow for auditing.

This is but a small fragment of the quickly developing net-scape: folk and enterprises who do a living off the Computer network craze rather than off the Computer network itself. Everyone knows that there is more money in lecture just about how to do money on the Computer network - than in the Computer network itself. This maxim still holds true despite the 32 billion US dollars in E-commerce in 1998. Business to User (B2C) sales grow less smartly than Business to Business (B2B) sales and are likely to suffer another blow with the advent of Peer to Peer (P2P) computer networks. The latter allow PCs to act as servers and thus change the swapping of computer files asmong connected users (with or without a central directory).

Content Suppliers

This is the deprived sector of the Internet. They all lose money (even e-tailers which offer basic, standardized goods - books, CDs - with the exception, until Gregorian calendar month 11, of sites connected to tourism). No one thanks them for content make with the investment of a lot of effort and a lot of money. A actually qualitative, fully commerce enabled site cost up to 5,000,000 USD, excluding site maintenance and client and visitant services. Content providers are perpetually criticized for lack of creativeness or for too more creativity. More and more is asked of them. They are exploited by intermediaries, hitchhikers and another parasites. This is all an off-shoot of the attribute of the Computer network as a free content area.

More than 100 million men and women perpetually access the Web - but this number stands to grow (the median prediction: 300 million). Yet, piece the Web is used by 35% of those with access to the Computer network - e-mail is used by more than 60%. E-mail is by far the most common function ("killer app") and specialized applications (Eudora, Computer network Mail, Microsoft Exchange) - free or ad sponsored - keep it accessible to all and user-friendly.

Most of the users like to surf (browse, visit sites) the net without reason or goal in mind. This does it difficult to apply traditional marketing techniques.

What is the meaning of "targeted audiences" or "market shares" in this context?

If a surfboarder visits sites which deal with aberrant sex and nuclear physics in the same session - what to do of it?

The public and legislative backlash against the gathering of surfers' data by Computer network ad agencies and another web sites - has led to growing content regarding the profile of Computer network users, their demography, habits, preferences and dislikes.

People like the really act of surfing. They want to be entertained, then they use the Computer network as a working tool, mostly in the service of their employer, who, normally foots the bill. Users love free downloads (mainly software).

"Free" is a key word on the Internet: it used to belong to the US Government and to a bunch of universities. Users like information, with emphasis on news and data just about new products. But they do not like to shop on the net - yet. Only 38% of all surfers ready-made a purchase during 1998.

67% of them love virtual sex. 50% of the sites most often visited are pornography sites (this is evocative of the early days of the Video Container Recorder - VCR). Folk dedicate the same amount of time to observation video cassettes or television as they do to surfboarding the net. The Computer network seems to cannibalize television.

Sex is followed by music, sports, health, television, computers, cinema, politics, pets and cookery sites. Folk are drawn to interactive games. The Computer network wish shortly change folk to gamble, if not hampered by legislation. 10 billion USD in gambling money are foreseen to pass through the net. This does sense: nothing like a computer to provide immediate (monetary and psychological) rewards.

Commerce on the net is another favourite. The Computer network is a perfect medium for the sale of software system and another digital products (e-books). The problem of data safety is on its way to being resolved with the SET (or other) earth standard.

As early as 1995, the Computer network had more than 100 virtual buying malls visited by 2.5 million shoppers (and probably double this number in 1996).

The predictions for 1999 were between 1-5 billion USD of net buying (plus 2 billion USD through on-line information providers, such as CompuServe and AOL) - established deplorably inaccurate. The actual number in 1998 was 7 times the prediction for 1999.

It is besides wide believed that circa 20% of the family budget wish pass through the Computer network as e-money and this amounts to 150 billion USD.

The Computer network wish become a giant inter-bank clearing system and varied ATM type banking and investment services wish be provided through it. Basically, everything can be done through the Internet: looking for a job, for instance.

Yet, the Computer network wish ne'er replace human interaction. Folk are likely to prefer personal banking, window buying and the societal experience of the buying mall to Computer network banking and e-commerce, or m-commerce.

Some sites already sport classified ads. This is not a bad way to pay expenses, although most classified ads are free (it is the advertising they attract that matters).

Another developing trend is website-rating and critique. It wish be treated the way today's written editions are. It wish have a limited influence on the consumption decisions of several users. Browsers already sport buttons tagged "What's New" and "What's Hot". Most Search Engines recommend specific sites. Users are cautious. Studies discovered that no user, no matter how heavy, has systematically re-visited more than 200 sites, a minuscule number. The 10 most popular web sites (Yahoo!, MSN, etc.) attracted more than 50% of all Computer network traffic. Site recommendation services often produce random - at times, wrong - selections for their user. There are besides concerns regarding privacy issues. The backlah against Amazon's "readers' circles" is an example.

Web Critics, who activity now chiefly for the written press, wish publish their wares on the net and wish link to intelligent software system which wish hyperlink, recommend and refer. Several web critics wish be known with specific applications - really, expert systems which wish incorporate their cognition and experience.

The Money

Where wish the capital needful to finance all these developments move from?

Again, there are two schools:

One says that sites wish be supported through advertising - and so wish search engines and another applications accessed by users.

Certain ASPs (Application Service Providers which rent out access to application software system which resides on their servers) are considering this model.

The second version is simpler and allows for the existence of non-commercial content.

It proposes to collect negligible sums (cents or fractions of cents) from every user for every visit ("micro-payments") or a subscription fee. These accumulated cents or subscription fees wish change the owners of old sites to update and to maintain them and encourage entrepreneurs to develop new ones. Certain content aggregators (especially of digital textbooks) have adopted this model (Questia, Fathom).

The adherents of the 1st school pointed at the 5 million USD invested with in advertising during 1995 and to the 60 million or so invested with during 1996.

Its opponents point exactly at the same numbers: laughably small once contrasted with more conventional advertising modes. The potential of advertising on the net is limited to 1.5 billion USD annually in 1998, thundered the pessimists (many thought that even as half that would-be be really nice). The actual amount was double the prediction but still deplorably small and inadequate to keep the Internet's content development.

Compare these figures to the sale of Computer network software system ($4 billion), Computer network hardware ($3 billion), Computer network access provision ($4.2 billion) in 1995.

Hembrecht and Quist calculable that Computer network related industries scooped up 23.2 billion USD annually (A report discharged in mid-1996).

And what follows advertising is hardly more enocuraging.

The user interacts and the product is delivered to him. This - the delivery phase - is a slow and debilitative epilogue to the exciting affair of ordering through the net at the speed of light. Too galore consumers still complain that they do not obtain what they ordered, or that delivery is late and products defective.

The resolution may lie in the integration of advertising and content. Pointcast, for instance, integrated advertising into its news broadcasts, endlessly streamed to the user's screen, even as once inactive (they provided a downloadable active screen saver and ticker in a "push technology"). Downloading of digital music, video and text (e-books) wish lead to immediate gratification of the user and wish increase the efficaciousness of advertising.

Whatever the case may be, a uniform, in agreement upon system of rank as a basis for charging advertisers, is painfully needed. There is besides the question of what does the adman pay for?

Many advertisers (Procter and Gamble, for instance) refuse to pay according to the number of hits or impressions (=entries, visits to a site). They agree to pay only according to the number of the times that their ad was hit (page views).

This several basis for calculation is likely to upset all revenue scenarios.

Very few sites of important, respectable newspapers are on a subscription basis. Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal) and The Economist, to mention but two.

Will this become the prevailing trend?

The Computer network as a Trope

Three metaphors move to mind once considering the Computer network "philosophically".

The Computer network as a Chaotic Library

1. The Problem of Cataloguing

The Computer network is an assortment of billions of pages containing information. Several of them are visible and others are generated from hidden databases by users' requests ("Invisible Internet").

The Computer network displays no discernible order, classification, or categorization. As opposed to "classical" libraries, no one has fabricated a cataloguing standard (remember Dewey?). This is so needful that it is amazing that it has not been fabricated yet. Several sites so apply the Dewey Decimal Syatem (Suite101). Others default to a directory structure (Open Directory, Yahoo!, Look Smart and others).

Had such a standard existed (an in agreement upon numerical cataloguing method) - each site would-be have self-classified. Sites would-be have an interest to do so to increase their penetration rates and their visibility. This, naturally, would-be have eliminated the need for today's clunky, incomplete and (highly) inefficient search engines.

A site whose number starts with 900 wish be instantly known as dealing with history and multiple classification wish be bucked up to allow finer cross-sections to emerge. An example of such an emerging technology of "self classification" and "self-publication" (though limited to academic resources) is the "Academic Resource Channel" by Scindex.

Users wish not be required to remember reams of numbers. Futurity browsers wish be akin to catalogues, really more like the applications used in modern day libraries. Compare this utopia to the current dystopy. Users struggle with reams of digressive material to finally reach a partial and dissatisfactory destination. At the same time, there likely are web sites which exactly match the poor user's needs. Yet, what presently determines the chances of a happy encounter between user and content - are the whims of the specific search engine used and things like meta-tags, headlines, a fee paid, or the right opening sentences.

2. Screen versus Page

The computer screen, because of physical limitations (size, the fact that it has to be scrolled) fails to effectively vie with the written page. The latter is still the most ingenious medium yet fabricated for the storage and release of matter information. Granted: a computer screen is better at highlight distinct units of information. So, this draws the batlle lines: structures (printed pages) versus units (screen), the around-the-clock and easily reversible versus the discrete.

The resolution is an efficient way to translate computer screens to written matter. It is hard to believe, but no such thing exists. Computer screens are still hostile to off-line printing. In another words: if a user copies information from the Computer network to his Word Processor (or vice versa, for that matter) - he ends up with a fragmented, garbage-filled and non-aesthetic document.

Very few site developers try to do thing just about it - even as fewer succeed.

3. The Computer network and the CD-ROM

One of the biggest mistakes of content suppliers is that they do not mix contents or have a "static-dynamic interaction".

The Computer network can now easily act with another media (especially with audio CDs and with CD-ROMs) - even as as the user surfs.

Examples abound:

A buying catalogue can be distributed on a CD-ROM by mail. The Computer network Site wish allow the user to order a product antecedently chosen from the catalogue, piece off-line. The catalogue could besides be updated through the site (as is done with CD-ROM encyclopedias).

The advantages of the CD-ROM are clear: really fast access time (dozens of times faster than the access to a site exploitation 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 user wish choice the ad that he wants to see and wish connect to the Computer network to view a relevant video.

He could then besides have an interactive chat (or a conference) with a salesperson, obtain information just about the company, just about the ad, just 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 chosen by an Editorial Board.

But CD-ROMs are probably a doomed medium. This industry chose to emphasize the wrong things. Storage capacity accrued exponentially and, inside a year, desktops with 80 Gb hard disks wish be common. Moreover, the Network Computer - the stripped down version of the personal computer - wish put at the disposal of the average user terabytes in storage capacity and the process 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 wish be accessible quickly and plentifully.

The CD-ROM, on the another 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 1st data become accessible to the user. Compare this to a book or a magazine. Data in these oldest of media is instantly accessible 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 system 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 aforesaid of the CD-ROM. By ligature its futurity to the obsolete conception 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 Encyclopedia Britannica exemplifies several of the tremendous, mind boggling possibilities:

Each entry is hyperlinked to sites on the Computer network which deal with the same subject matter. The sites are cautiously screened (though more elaborate descriptions of each site should be accessible - they could be prepared either by the staff of the encyclopedia or by the site owner). Links are accessible to data in various forms, including audio and video. Everything can be traced to the hard disk or to CD-ROMs.

This is a new conception of a cognition centre - not just an assortment of material. It is modular, can be accessorial on and ablated from. It can be coupled to a voice Q&A centre. Queries by subscribers can be answered by e-mail, by fax, announce on the site, hard copies can be sent by post. This "Trivial Pursuit" service could be really popular - there is appreciable appetency for "Just in Time Information". The Library of Congress - together with a few another libraries - is in the process of devising just such a service accessible to the public (CDRS - Cooperative Digital Reference Service).

5. The Feedback Option

Hard to believe, but really few sites encourage their guests to express an opinion just about the site, its contents and its aesthetics. This indicates an ossified mode of thinking just about the most dynamic mass medium ever created, the only interactive mass medium yet. Each site must perfectly contain feedback and rank questionnaires. It has the side benefit of creating a information 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 just about the site, suggestions for improvement, mailto and leave message facilities, etc.)

It can contain rank questionnaires (rate these ads, these TV or radio shows, these advertising campaigns).

It can apportion several space to clients to create their house pages in (these house pages could lead to their sites, to another sites, to another sections of the host site - and, in any case, wish serve as a display of the creative talent of the site owners). This wish give the site owners a image of the distribution of the areas of interest of the visitors to the site.

The site can include statistical, trailing and counter software.

Such a site can refer to hundreds of useful software system applications (which deal with several aspects of advertising and marketing, for instance). Developers of applications wish be able to use the site to promote their products. Another practical applications could besides 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 system of the Open Directory Project).

6. Computer network Derived CD-ROMS

The Computer network is an tremendous reservoir of freely available, public domain, information.

With a borderline 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 1st pages of each of these sites

Hyperlinks to each of the sites

A browser

Access to all the important search engines

Suggested search strings (it is extremely difficult to formulate a booming search in the Internet, it takes expertise. "Ready-made searches" wish be a hit in the future, as the number of sites grows)

A lexicon of professional terms, a speller and a synonym finder

A list of general reference sites

Software system specific to the field

7. Publication

The Computer network is the world's largest "publisher", by far. It "publishes" FAQs (Frequent Answers and Questions regarding about every technical matter in the world), e-zines (electronic versions of magazines, not a really profitable pursuit), the electronic versions of dailies (together with on-line news and information services), reference and another e-books, monographs, articles and minutes of discussions ("threads"), among another types of material.

Publishing an e-zine has a few advantages: it promotes the sales of the written 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 futurity trend is a combined subscription: electronic (mainly for the depository value and the ability to link to additional information) and written (easier to browse current issue).

The electronic daily presents another advantages:

It allows for immediate feedback and for flowing, about real-time, communication between writers and readers. The electronic version, therefore, acquires a rotating mechanism 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 1st 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 exploitation his mouse.

Specialty hand control devices already allow for downloading and storage of huge quantities of data (up to 4000 print pages). The user gains access to libraries containing hundreds of texts, altered to be downloaded, keep and see by the specific device. Again, a convergence of standards is to be expected in this field as well (the final contenders wish probably be Adobe's PDF against Microsoft's MS-Reader).

Broadly, e-books are treated either as:

Continuation of print books (p-books) by another means

or as

A whole new publication universe.

Since p-books are a more convenient medium then e-books - they wish prevail in any straightforward "medium replacement" or "medium displacement" battle.

In another words, if publishers wish persist in the simple and straightforward conversion of p-books to e-books - then e-books are doomed. They are just inferior to the price, comfort, tactile delights, browseability and scanability of p-books.

But e-books - being digital - open up a view of so far neglected possibilities. These wish only be accrued and enriched by the introduction of e-paper and e-ink. Among them:

Hyperlinks inside the e-book and without it - to web content, reference works, etc.

Embedded instant buying and ordering links

Divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines

Interaction with another e-books (using a wireless standard) - cooperative authoring

Interaction with another e-books - gambling and community activities

Mechanically or sporadically updated content

Multimedia system

Database, Favourites and History Maintenance (reading habits, buying habits, interaction with another readers, plot related decisions and more 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 several 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 Computer network is besides the world's biggest cemetery: tens of thousands of defaulter sites, still accessible - the "Ghost Sites" of this electronic frontier.

This, in a way, is collective memory. One of the Internet's main functions wish be to preserve and remove cognition through time. It is called "memory" in biology - and "archive" in library science. The history of the Computer network is being documented by search engines (Google) and specialized services (Alexa) alike.

The Computer network 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 Computer network fulfils all the functions of the Nervous System in the body and is, several 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 perusal the functions of the brain (from infancy to adulthood) - amounts to perusal the futurity of the Net itself.

1. The Collective Computer

To carry the trope of "a collective brain" further, we would-be expect the process 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 wish obtain the results and communicate with the Net to obtain additional clarifications and manual 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 system - and links several computer platforms by means of software.

Put differently:

Future servers wish contain not only information (as they do today) - but besides software system applications. The user of an application wish not be forced to buy it. He wish not be driven into hardware-related expenditures to accommodate the ever growing size of applications. He wish not find himself wasting his scarce memory and computing resources on passive storage. Instead, he wish use a browser to call a central computer. This computer wish contain the needful software, broken to its elements (=applets, small applications). Anytime the user wishes to use one of the functions of the application, he wish siphon it off the central computer. Once finished - he wish "return" it. Process speeds and response times wish be such that the user wish not feel at all that it is not with his own software system that he is working (the question of ownership wish be really blurred in such a world). This technology is accessible and it aggravated a heated debated just about the futurity shape of the computing industry as a whole (desktops - actually 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 coupled to the computer network 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, meteorologic data and solve complex equations. This is a prime example of a collective brain in action.

2. The Computer network - 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 spread organs of the same legal entity (branches of a bank, girl companies, a sales force). Galore LANs are wireless.

The computer network / extranet and wireless LANs wish be the winners. They wish bit by bit eliminate several fixed line LANs and WANs. The Computer network offers equal, platform-independent, location-independent and time of day - independent access to all the members of an organization.Sophisticated firewall safety application protects the privacy and confidentiality of the computer network from all but the most determined and savvy hackers.

The Computer network is an inter-organizational communication network, constructed on the platform of the Computer network 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 computer network interface wish emerge. This wish be expedited by the opening up of the TCP/IP communication architecture and its handiness to PCs. A billion USD wish go just to finance computer network servers - or, at least, this is the median forecast.

The development of measures to safeguard server routed inter-organizational communication (firewalls) is the resolution to one of two obstacles to the institution of the Intranet. The second problem is the limited information measure which does not permit the efficient remove of audio (not to mention video).

It is difficult to conduct video conferencing through the Internet. Even as the voices of discussants who use computer network phones move out (slightly) distorted.

All this did not prevent 95% of the Fortune 1000 from installation intranet. 82% of the rest intend to install one by the end of this year. Medium to big size American firms have 50-100 computer network terminals per every computer network one.

At the end of 1997, there were 10 web servers per every another type of server in organizations. The sale of computer network related software system was projected to multiply by 16 (to 8 billion USD) by the year 1999.

One of the greatest advantages of the computer network is the ability to remove 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 computer network 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. Several news are fit to print - yet are discarded because of space limitations. Still, person is bound to be interested. It cost the newspaper close to nothing (the material is, normally, already computer-resident) - and it mightiness even as generate accessorial circulation and income. It can be even as formed as an "underground, non-commercial, alternative" newspaper for a entirely several readership.

The above is but one example of the possible use of the computer network to communicate with the organization's user base.

3. Mail and Chat

The Computer network (its e-mail possibilities) is erosion traditional mail. The market share of the post office in conveyance messages by regular mail has dwindled from 77% to 62% (1995). E-mail has dilated to capture 36% (up from 19%).

90% of customers with on-line access use e-mail from time to time and 60% activity with it regularly. More than 2 billion messages traverse the computer network daily.

E-mail applications are accessible as software system and are enclosed in all browsers. Thus, the Computer network has entirely assimilated what used to be a separate service, to the extent that galore folk do the mistake of thinking that e-mail is a feature of the Internet. Microsoft continues to incorporate antecedently independent applications in its browsers - a behaviour which led to the 1999 anti-trust suit against it.

The computer network wish do to phone calls what it has done to mail. Already there are applications (Intel's, Vocaltec's, Net2Phone) which change the user to conduct a phone speech 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) piquant in the speech must possess the same software system and the same (computer) hardware. In the really near future, computer-to-regular phone applications wish eliminate this requirement. And, again, coincident multi-modality: the user can talk over the phone, see his party, send e-mail, obtain messages and remove documents - without obstructing the flow of the conversation.

The cost of transferring voice wish become so negligible that free voice traffic is conceivable in 3-5 years. Data traffic wish overtake voice traffic by a wide margin.

This beats regular phones.

The next phase wish probably involve virtual reality. Each of the parties wish be delineated by an "avatar", a 3-D statuette generated by the application (or the user's likeness mapped into the software system and superimposed on the the avatar). These figurines wish be multi-dimensional: they wish possess their own communication patterns, special habits, history, preferences - in short: their own "personality".

Thus, they wish be able to maintain an "identity" and a consistent pattern of communication which they wish develop over time.

Such a amount could host a site, accept, welcome and manual visitors, all the time bearing their preferences in its electronic "mind". It could narrate the news, like "Ananova" does. Visiting sites in the futurity is bound to be a more much pleasant affair.

4. E-cash

In 1996, the four corporate giants (Visa, MasterCard, Browser and Microsoft) in agreement on a standard for effecting secure payments through the Internet: SET. Computer network commerce is supposed to mushroom by a factor of 50 to 25 billion USD. Site owners wish be able to collect rent from passing visitors - or fees for services provided inside the site. Amazon instituted an honour system to collect donations from visitors. Dedicated visitors wish not be deterred by such trifles.

5. The Virtual Organization

The Computer network allows coincident communication between an about unlimited number of users. This is coupled with the efficient remove of multimedia system (video included) files.

This opens up a view of mind boggling opportunities which are the real core of the Computer network revolution: the virtual cooperative ("Follow the Sun") modes.

Examples:

A group of musicians wish be able to compose music or play it - piece spatially and temporally separated;

Advertising agencies wish be able to co-produce ad campaigns in a real time interactive mode;

Cinema and TV films wish be make from disparate geographical spots through the cooperation of folk who ne'er meet, except through the net.

These examples illustrate the conception of the "virtual community". Locations in space and time wish 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 practice 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 computer network can besides 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 exploitation visual, audio and matter means. The visitant 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 merchandising their merchandise on-line, as file downloads.

Yet, slow communications and limited information measure - constrain the growth potential of this mode of sale. Once resolved - intellectual property wish be oversubscribed 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 canonized computerised mail catalogue or Purchasing 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 another virtual businesses. It is now merchandising music, video, physics and galore another products. It started as a bookstore.

This contrasts with a more much creative idea: the virtual catalogue. It is a form of narrowcasting (as opposed to broadcasting): a surgically accurate targeting of potential user 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, user preferences and goods in transit) - and prices (sales, discounts, package deals) change in real time.

The user wish enter the site and there delineate his consumption profile and his preferences. A custom-made catalogue wish be instantly generated for him.

From then on, the history of his purchases, preferences and responses to feedback questionnaires wish be accumulated and accessorial to a database.

Each catalogue generated for him wish move replete with order forms. Once the user complete his purchases, his profile wish be updated.

There is no technological obstacles to implementing this vision now - only body and legal ones. Big retail stores are not up to process the flood of data expected to arrive. They besides remain extremely sceptical regarding the feasibleness 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 computer network off-shoot: the "smart (shopping) agents". These are AI applications with "long memories".

They draw elaborate profiles of consumers and users and then suggest purchases and refer to the appropriate sites, catalogues, or virtual malls.

They besides provide cost comparisons and the new generation (NetBot) cannot be blocked or fooled by exploitation differing product categories.

In the future, these agents wish refer besides to real life retail chains and issue a map of the branch or store nearest to an address fixed 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 computer network appliances. The owner of an computer network 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 according by his GPS - satellite Geographic Positioning System).

6. Computer network News

Internet news are advantaged. They can be often and dynamically updated (unlike static print news) and be always accessible (similar to print news), immediate and fresh.

The futurity wish witness a form of interactive news. A special "corner" in the site wish be open to updates announce by the public (the equivalent of press releases). This wish provide readers with a glimpse into the devising of the news, the raw material news are ready-made of. The same technology wish be applied to interactive TVs. Content wish be downloaded from the computer network and be displayed as an overlay on the TV screen or in a square in a special location. The contents downloaded wish be directly connected to the TV programming. Thus, the life and track record of a football player wish be displayed during a football match and the history of a country once 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 just about "sites" and "advertising space". Yet, the Computer network was ne'er compared to a new continent whose surface is infinite.

The Computer network wish have its own real estate developers and construction companies. The real life equivalents derive their profits from the scarceness of the resource that they exploit - the Computer network counterparts wish derive their profits from the tenants (the content).

Two examples:

A few companies bought "Internet Space" (pages, domain names, portals), developed it and do commercial use of it by:

rental it out

constructing infrastructure and merchandising it

providing an intelligent gateway, entry point to the rest of the computer network

or merchandising advertising space which subsidizes the tenants (Yahoo!-Geocities, Rack and others).

Cybersquatting (purchasing specific domain names identical to brand names in the "real" world) and then merchandising the domain name to an interested party

Internet Space can be easily purchased or created. The investment is low and acquiring 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 buying mall, for free house 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 assumptive entrepreneurs, gamblers) invest in a new invention. The invention of a new communications technology is mostly attended by devastating silence.

No one knows to say what are the optimum uses of the invention (in another words, what is its future). Galore - 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 normally founded:

To start with, there is, indeed, no need for the new medium. A new medium invents itself - and the need for it. It besides generates its own market to satisfy this recently found need.

Two prime examples are the personal computer and the compact disc.

When the PC was invented, its uses were entirely unclear. Its performance was lacking, its abilities limited, it was dreadfully user unfriendly.

It suffered from faulty design, absent user comfort and ease of use and required appreciable professional cognition to operate. The worst part was that this cognition was unique to the new invention (not portable).

It reduced labour quality and limited one's professional horizons. There were galore gripes among those allotted to tame the new beast.

The PC was thought of, at the beginning, as a sophisticated gambling 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 canonized character printer or spreadsheet. It was used chiefly as a word processor (and its existence even entirely on these grounds). The program was the 1st real application and it incontestable the advantages inherent to this new machine (mainly flexibility and speed). Still, it was more (speed) of the same. A faster ruler or pen and paper. What was the difference between this and a hand control calculator (some of them already had computing, memory and programming features)?

The PC was recognized as a medium only 30 years after it was fabricated with the introduction of multimedia system software. All this time, the computer continuing to spin off markets and secondary markets, inevitably and professional specialities. The talk as always was centred on how to improve on existing markets and solutions.

The Computer network is the computer's 1st important breakthrough. So far the computer was only quantitatively several - the multimedia system and the Computer network have ready-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 folk 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 Computer network - it fabricated itself despite its own creators.

Computer professionals (hardware and software system experts alike) - are linear thinkers. The Computer network is non linear and modular.

It is still the age of hackers. There is still a lot to be done in up technological art and powers. But their control of the contents is decrease and they are being bit by bit replaced by communicators, creative people, advertising executives, psychologists and the entirely unpredictable masses who flock to flaunt their house pages.

These all are attuned to the user, his mental inevitably and his information and amusement preferences.

The compact disc is a several tale. It was deliberately fabricated to improve upon an existing technology (basically, Edison's Gramophone). Market-wise, this was a major gamble: the improvement was, at first, debatable (many aforesaid that the sound quality of the 1st generation of compact discs was inferior to that of its contemporaneous record players). Consumers had to be positive to change several software system 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 system (though contrasted with the limited life expectancy of the consumer, several of the 1st sales pitches plumbed perfectly morbid).

The computer suffered from unclear positioning. The compact disc was really clean as to its main functions - but had a rough time convincing the consumers.

Every medium is 1st controlled by the technical people. Johann gutenberg was a printer - not a publisher. Yet, he is the world's most celebrated publisher. The technical cadre is joined by dubious or small-scale entrepreneurs and, together, they establish ventures with no clean vision, market-oriented thinking, or orderly plan of action. The lawgiver is besides dumfounded and does not grasp what is happening - thus, there is no legislation to regulate the use of the medium. Witness the initial confusion concerning proprietary software system and the copyrights of ROM embedded software. Abuse or under-utilization of resources grow. Recall the sale of radio frequencies to the 1st 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. Piece in real life it is possible to sell an undeveloped plot of land - no one wish buy "pages". The supply of these is unlimited - their scarceness (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 1st time authors wish be able to publish their 1st manuscript - for a fee. Evidently, such a fee wish be a fraction of what it would-be 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 wish be provided with access to the contents and to a chapter of the books. This is presently being done by a few fledgling firms but a full scale publication industry has not yet developed.

The Life of a Medium The computer network is just 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 likewise publicized as "global" and transforming.

Every medium of communications goes through the same organic process cycle:

Anarchy

The Public Phase

At this stage, the medium and the resources attached to it are really cheap, accessible, under no regulative 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 fiscal resources, they regard the new medium as a cost effective way of diffusing their messages.

The Computer network was not exempt from this phase which complete only a few years ago. It started with a complete computer lawlessness 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 subsidised by government funds). The result was a globe encompassing network of academic institutions. The American Pentagon established the network of all networks, the ARPANET. Another government departments joined the fray, headed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) which withdrew only recently from the Internet.

The Computer network (with a several 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 anarchical broadcasts with no discernible regularity. Non commercial organizations and not for profit organizations began their own broadcasts and even as 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 (e.g., 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 really sensitive strings in every Western soul: the efficient allocation of resources which is the result of competition, corruption and unskillfulness naturally associated with the public sector ("Other People's Money" - OPM), the ulterior motives of members of the ruling political echelons (the ill-famed American Paranoia), a lack of variety and of occupation 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 commercialisation and rating. Fears of monopolisation and cartelization of the medium are elicited - 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 freshman 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 oversubscribed to the private sector which wish use it to transmit radio signals to receivers. In another 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 Computer network in Apr 1995, once the NSF ceased to finance several of the networks and, thus, privatized its so far heavy involvement in the net.

A new Communications Act was legislated in 1996. It allowable "organized anarchy". It allowed media operators to invade each other's territories.

Phone companies wish be allowed to transmit video and cable companies wish 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 big cost tag - official censorship. "Voluntary censorship", to be sure, somewhat toothless standardization and societal control authorities, to be sure - still, a censorship with its own institutions to boot. The private sector reacted by threatening judicial proceeding - but, below the surface it is caving in to pressure and temptation, constructing its own censorship codes several in the cable and in the computer network media.

Institutionalization

This phase is the next in the Internet's history, though, it seems, unbeknownst to it.

It is characterised by accrued activities of legislation. Legislators, on all levels, learn the medium and lurch at it passionately. Resources which were considered "free", suddenly are changed to "national treasures not to be distributed with cheaply, nonchalantly and with frivolity".

It is conceivable that certain parts of the Computer network wish be "nationalized" (for instance, in the form of a licensing requirement) and tendered to the private sector. Legislation wish be enacted which wish deal with allowable 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 apportion 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 wish have to pay to fend off the eager lawgiver and his nuisance value.

All this is bound to lead to a monopolisation of hosts and servers. The important broadcast channels wish diminish in number and be subjected to severe content restrictions. Sites which wish not succumb to these requirements - wish be deleted or neutralized. Content guidelines (euphemism for censorship) exist, even as as we write, in all major content providers (CompuServe, AOL, Geocities, Tripod, Prodigy).

The Bloodletting

This is the phase of consolidation. The number of players is severely reduced. The number of browser types wish be limited to 2-3 (Netscape, Microsoft and which else?). Networks wish merge to form in private closely-held mega-networks. Servers wish merge to form hyper-servers run on supercomputers in "server farms". The number of ISPs wish be well cut.

50 companies subordinate 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 wish number 6.

This is the stage once companies - fighting for fiscal survival - strive to acquire as galore users/listeners/viewers as possible. The programming is shallowed to the lowest (and widest) common denominator. Shallow programming dominates as long as the bloodletting proceeds.

From Rags to Wealth

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 huge profits and spawned by imaginative genius wish ensure the longevity and continuing pertinence of Moore's Law.

The Computer network is besides subject to "Metcalf's Law".

It says that once we connect N computers to a network - we get an increase of N to the second power in its computing / process 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 Handiness of Software system and Connection

This is prevailing in the Net wherever even as possibly commercial software system can be downloaded for free. In galore countries television viewers still pay for television broadcasts - but in the USA and galore another countries in the West, the basic package of television channels comes free of charge.

As users / consumers form a habit of exploitation (or consuming) the software system - it is commercialised and begins to carry a cost tag. This is what happened with the advent of cable television: contents are oversubscribed for subscription and usage (Pay Per View - PPV) fees.

Gradually, this is what wish happen to most of the sites and software system on the Net. Those which survive wish begin to collect usage fees, access fees, subscription fees, downloading fees and other, suitably named, fees. These fees are bound to be low - but it is the principle that counts. Even as a few cents per dealing wish accumulate to hefty sums with the traffic which wish characterize the Net (or, at least its more popular locales).

Adverising revenues wish allow ISPs to offer free communication and storage volume. Gradually, connect time charges obligatory by the phone companies wish be scoured by tough competition from the likes of the cable companies. Accessing the computer network mightiness well be free of all charges in 10 years time.

3. Accrued 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 Computer network wish attract - under the most exuberant scenario - less than one tenth of this number of people. The only reasons for this inequality are (the lack of) user friendliness and reliability. Even as browsers, among the most user friendly applications ever - are not sufficiently so. The user still inevitably to cognize how to use a keyboard and must possess several basic acquaintance with the operational system.

The more mature the medium, the more friendly it becomes. Finally, it wish be operated exploitation speech or common language. There wish be room left for user "hunches" and built in flexible responses.

4. Societal Taxes

Sooner or later, the business sector has to mollify the God of public opinion by offerings of political and societal nature. The Computer network is an affluent, educated, professional 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 system 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 Computer network is an moralist medium. Publicly, this is an unhealthy posture. "Internetophobia" is already discernible. Folk (and politicians) talk just about how unsafe the Computer network is and just about its possible uses for racial, sexist and sexy purposes. The wider public is in a state of awe.

So, site builders and owners wish do well to begin to improve their image: provide free access to schools and community centres, bankroll computer network skill classes, freely distribute contents and software system to educational institutions, collaborate with researchers and societal scientists and engineers.

In short: encourage the view that the Computer network is a medium occupation to the inevitably of the community and the underprivileged, a mostly philanthropist endeavour. This besides happens to do good business sense by educating a futurity generation of users. He who visited a site once a student, free of charge - wish pay to do so once ready-made an executive. Such a user wish besides pass on the information inside and without his organization. This is called media exposure.

The futurity will, no doubt, witness public Computer network terminals, subsidised ISP accounts, free Computer network classes and an alternative "non-commercial, public" approach to the Net.

The Internet: Medium or Chaos?

There has ne'er 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 Computer network has no central (or even as 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 Computer network standards (like the aforesaid ISOC, or the domain setting ICANN) - but they are all voluntary organizations, with no binding legal, enforcement, or judgement powers. The result is often mayhem.

Many mistakenly call the Computer network the 1st democratic medium. Yet, it hardly qualifies as a medium and by no stretch of nomenclature is it democratic. Democracy has institutions, hierarchies, order. The Computer network has none of these things. There are several vague understandings as to what is and is not allowed. This is a "code of honour" (more evocative of the Sicilian Mob than of the British Parliament, let's say). Violations are admonished by excommunication (of the violating site or person).

The Computer network has culture - but no education. Freedom of Speech is entrenched. Members of this virtual community react adversely to ideas of censorship, even as once 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 suit against the General Manager of AOL in Germany) are acutely criticized. In the meantime, the spirit of the Computer network 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 Computer network is not dependent upon a given hardware or software. True, it is accessible only through computers and there are dominant browsers.

But the Computer network accommodates any digital (bit transfer) platform. Computer network wish be incorporated in the futurity into portable computers, palmtops, PDAs, mobile phones, cable television, telephones (with voice interface), house appliances and even as carpus watches. It wish be accessible to all, regardless of hardware and software.

The situation is, obviously, several with another media. There is standard hardware (the television set, the radio receiver, the digital print equipment). Data remove modes are standardized as well. The only variable is the contents - and even as 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 wish "broadcast" (it is, of course, a PULL medium, not a PUSH medium - see next chapter) to galore kinds of hardware. Its functions wish be controlled by 2-5 really common software system applications. But it wish disagree from television in that contents wish 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 exploitation a single house video camera. And the contents wish remain varied.

Naturally, marketing content (sites) wish remain an big-ticket art. Sites wish besides be richer or poorer, in accordance with the investment ready-made in them.

Non One-dimensionality and Functional Modularity

The Computer network is the 1st medium in human history that is non-linear and entirely 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 Computer network is different:

When communication through the Internet, there is no way to predict how the information wish reach its destination. The routing of information through the network is entirely random, really more like the principle governing the telephone 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 mammoth maze of copper wires and optic fibres. It seeps through any accessible 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 - exploitation the TCP/IP data remove protocol - is sent to roll this global labyrinth. But the path from one neighbourhood of London to another may traverse Japan.

The actually ingenious thing just about the Computer network is that each computer (each receiver or end user) so burdens the system by imposing on it its information inevitably (as is the case with another media) - but it besides assists in the task of pushing information packets on to their destinations. It seems that this contribution to the system outweighs the burdens obligatory upon it.

The network has a growth potential which is always bigger than the number of its users. It is as although television sets aided in passing the signals received by them to another television sets. Every computer which is a member of the network is several a message (content) and a medium (active information channel), several a transmitter and a receiver. If 30% of all computers on the Net were to crash - there wish be no operational impact (there is tremendous built in redundancy). Obviously, several contents wish no longer be accessible (information channels wish be affected).

The interactivity of this medium is a guarantee against the monopolisation of contents. Anyone with a thousand dollars can launch his/her own (reasonably sophisticated) site, accessible to all another Computer network users. Space is accessible through house page providers.

The name of the game is no longer the creation - it is the creative content (design), the content itself and, above all, the marketing of the site.

The Computer network is an infinite and unlimited resource. This goes against the grain of the most basic economic conception (of scarcity). Each computer that joins the Computer network strengthens it exponentially - and tens of thousands join daily. The Computer network 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 although 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 another interactive medium except the Internet. Cable TV does not allow two-way data remove (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 however the combining of the Computer network with satellite capabilities (VSAT) or with the revenant digital television.

The television screen is inferior once compared to the computer screen. Only the Computer network is there as a true two-way possibility. The technological problems that enclosed it are slowly dissipating.

The Computer network allows for one-dimensional and bi - dimensional interactivity.

One-dimensional interactivity: fill in and dispatch a form, send and obtain messages (through e-mail or v-mail).

Two-dimensional interactivity: to talk to person piece several parties activity on an application, to see your conversant, to talk to him and to remove documents to him for his perusal as the speech continues apace.

This is no longer science fiction. In less than five years this wish be as common as the telephone - and it wish have a profound effect on the traditional services provided by the phone companies. Computer network phones, Computer network videophones - they wish be serious competitors and the phone companies are likely to react once they begin to feel the heat. This wish happen once the Computer network wish acquire black box features. Phone companies, software system giants and cable TV operators are likely to end up owning big chunks of the moneymaking futurity market of the Net.

The Solitary Medium

The Computer network 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 academe (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 besides a extremely individualistic medium.

The Computer network 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 around-the-clock involvement of the administration came to an end in 1995 once 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 another media, the Computer network was not invented, nor was its market. The inventors of the telephone, the telegraph, the radio, the television and the compact disc - all fabricated antecedently non-existent markets for their products. It took time, effort and money to convert consumers that they needful these "gadgets".

By contrast, the Computer network was fabricated by its own consumers and so was the market for it. Only once the latter was fully bad did producers and businessmen join in. Microsoft began to hesitatingly test the computer network waters only in 1995!

On Line Memories

The Computer network is the only medium with online memory, really more like the human brain. The memories of these two - the Net and the Brain - are instantly accessible. In both, it is keep 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 Computer network is an amazing combination of data process 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 more clearer distinction even as 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 another media provide us with processed, censored, "clean" content.

The Computer network is a medium of raw materials, partially well organized (the rough equivalent of a newspaper) - and partially 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 publication tools - as well as access to computer space on servers. This leads to variable degrees of quality of contents and content providers and this, in turn, prevents monopolisation and cartelization of the information supply channels.

The users of the Computer network are still undecided: do they prefer drafts or newspapers. They frequent well designed sites. There are even as design competitions and awards. But they display a preference for sites that are perpetually updated (i.e. closer in their nature to a raw material - rather than to a finished product). They prefer sites from which they can remove material to quietly process at home, alone, on their PCs, at their leisure.

Even the conception 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 Computer network users love to be involved, to feel the power in their fingertips, they are all alcohol-dependent to one form of power or another.

Similarly, a car entirely mechanically driven and navigated is not likely to sell well. Part of the experience of drive - the sensation of power ("power stirring") - is critical to the purchase decision.

It is not in vain that the trope for exploitation the Computer network is "surfing" (and not, let's say, browsing).

The problem is that the Computer network is still preponderantly an English language medium (though it is fast changing). It discriminates against those whose parent tongue is different. All software system applications activity better in English. Otherwise they have to be altered and fitted with special fonts (Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, Russian and Chinese - each present a several set of problems to overcome). This situation mightiness change with the attainment of a critical mass of users (some say, 2 million per non-Anglophone country).

Comprehensive (Virtual) Reality

This is the 1st (though, probably, not the last) medium which allows the user to conduct his whole life inside its boundaries.

Television presents a clean division: there is a passive viewer. His task is to absorb information and subject it to borderline processing. The Computer network 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 about 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 really primitive. In ten years time, the Computer network wish offer its users the option of video conferencing (possibly, three dimensional, holographic). The participants' figures wish be projected on big screens. Documents wish be exchanged, personal notes, spreadsheets, private secret counteroffers.

Virtual Reality games wish become reality in less time. Special end-user instrumentality wish do the player believe that he, actually, is part of the game (while still in his room). The player wish be able to choice an pictures borrowed from a information and it wish represent him, seen by all the another players. Everyone will, thus, end up incursive everyone else's private space - without invasive on his privacy!

The Computer network wish be the medium of choice for phone and videophone communication (including conferencing).

Many mundane activities wish be done through Internet: banking, buying for standard items, etc.

The above are examples to the Internet's power and ability to replace our reality in due time. A earth out there wish continue to exist - but, more and more we wish act with it through the beguiled interface of the Net.

A Brave New Net

The futurity of a medium in the devising is difficult to predict. Do it to mention the ridiculous prognoses which attended the PC (it is nothing but a gambling gadget, it is a replacement for the electric typewriter, wish be used only by business). The telephone besides had its share of ludicrous statements: no one - claimed the "experts" would-be like to avoid eye contact piece 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 computer network has a really limited futurity as late as 1995!!!

Still, this medium has a few characteristics which differentiate it from all its predecessors. Were these traits to be endlessly and creatively exploited - a few statements can be ready-made just about the futurity of the Net with relative assurance.

Time and Space Independence

This is the 1st medium in history which does not require the coincident presence of folk in space-time in order to facilitate the remove of information. Television requires the existence of studio technicians, narrators and others in the transmission side - and the handiness 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 respondent machine and the video container recorder several accumulate information sent by a transmitter - and release it to a receiver in a several space and time. But they are discrete, their storage volume is limited and they do not allow for interaction with the transmitter.

The Computer network does not have these handicaps.

It facilitates the formation of "virtual organizations / institutions / businesses/ communities". These are groups of users that communicate in several 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 wish manage the account of a hi-tech firm based in Sydney. He wish activity with technical experts from Israel and with a French graphics office. They wish all file their activity (through the intranet) in the Net, to be studied by the another members of this virtual group. These wish enter the right site after clearing a firewall safety software. They wish all be engaged in flexiwork (flexible working times) and activity from their homes or offices, as they please. Obviously, they wish all abide by a general schedule.

They wish exchange audio files (the jingle, for instance), graphics, video, colour photographs and text. They wish comment on each other's activity and do suggestions exploitation e-mail. The client wish witness the whole creative process and wish 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 wish replace real life ones.

The mass rock concert has its own unreproducible sounds, palette and smells. But a virtual creation of a record is on the cards and it is tens of percents cheaper than a normal production. Again, the participants wish act through the Intranet. They wish swap notes, play their own instruments, do comments by e-mail, play together exploitation an appropriate software. If one of them is grabbed by inspiration in the middle of (his) night, he wish be able to preserve and pass on his ideas through the Net. The creative process wish be aided by novel applications which change the coincident remove of sound over the Net. The processes which are already digitized (the mix, for one) wish pose no problem to a digitized medium. Another applications wish let the users listen to the final versions and even as ask the public for his preview opinion.

Thus, even as creative processes which are perceived as difficult human presence - wish 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 wish not have physical offices, at all. The only address wish be an e-mail address. Dozens of lawyers from all over the earth with hundreds of specialities wish be partners in such an office. Such an office wish be truly transnational and multidisciplinary. It wish be fast and effective because its members wish electronically swap information (precedents, decrees, laws, opinions, research and plain ideas or professional experience).

It wish be able to service clients in every corner of the globe. It wish involve the remove of audio files (NetPhones), text, graphics and video (crucial in certain types of litigation). Today, such information is sent by post and courier services. Whenever several types of information are to be analysed - a physical meeting is a must. Otherwise, each type of information has to be transferred separately, exploitation unique instrumentality for each one.

Simultaneity and interactivity - this wish be the name of the game in the Internet. The professional term is "Coopetition" (cooperation between potential competitors, exploitation the Internet).

Other possibilities: a virtual creation of a movie, a virtual research and development team, a virtual sales force. The harbingers of the virtual university, the virtual schoolroom and the virtual (or distance) medical centre are here.

The Computer network - Parent of all Media

The Computer network is the technological resolution to the mythological "home amusement centre" debate.

It is about universally in agreement that, in the future, a typical house wish have one apparatus which wish give it access to all types of information. Even as the most daring did not talk just about coincident access to all the types of information or just about full interactivity.

The Computer network wish offer exactly this: access to every conceivable type of information at the same time , the ability to process them at the same time and full interactivity. The futurity pictures of this house centre is fairly clean - it is the temporal arrangement that is not. It is all dependent on the handiness of a wide (information) band - through which it wish be possible to remove big amounts of data at high speeds, exploitation the same communications line. Fast modems were coupled with optic fibres and with faulty planning and vision of futurity needs. The cable television industry, for instance, is entirely technologically unprepared for the age of interactivity. This is only partially the result of unwise, restrictive, legislation which prohibits data vendors from stepping on each others' toes. Phone companies were not allowable to provide Computer network services or to remove video through their wires - and cable companies were not allowed to transmit phone calls.

It is a question of time until these fossilised remains are removed by the almighty hand of the market. Once this happens, the house centre is likely to look like this:

A central computer attached to a big screen divided to windows. Television is broadcast on one window. A software system application is running on another. This could be an application connected to the television program (deriving data from it, recording it, collating it with pertinent data it picks out of databases). It could be an independent application (a computer game).

Updates from the New Dynasty Stock exchange flash at the corner of the screen and an icon blinks to signal the occurrence of a significant economic event.

A click of the mouse (?) and the news flash is born-again to a voice message. Another click and your broker is on the InternetPhone (possibly seen in a third window on the screen). You talk, you send him a fax containing manual and you compare notes. The fax was written on a word process application which opened up in yet another window.

Many believe that communication with the futurity generation of computers wish be voice communication. This is difficult to believe. It is weird to talk to a machine (especially in the presence of another humans). We are seriously pent-up this way. Moreover, voice wish interrupt another people's activity or pleasure. It is besides close to impossible to develop an efficient voice recognition software. Not to mention mishaps such as accidental activation.

The Friendly Computer network

The Computer network wish not escape the processes full-fledged by all another media.

It wish become easy to operate, user-friendly, in professional parlance.

It requires too more specialized information. It is not accessible to those who lack basic hardware and (Windows) software system concepts.

Alas, most of the population falls into the latter category. Only 30 million "Windows" operational systems were oversubscribed global at the end of 1996. Even as if this constitutes 20% of all the copies (the rest being pirated versions) - it still represents less than 3% of the population of the world. And this, gratuitous to say, is the world's most popular software system (following the DOS operational system).

The Computer network must trust on thing entirely different. It must have sophisticated, transparent-to-the-user search engines to manual to the cavernous chaotic libraries which wish typify it. The search engines must include complex decision devising algorithms. They must understand common languages and respond in mundane speech. They wish be efficient and improbably fast because they wish form their own search strategy (supplanting the user's faulty use of syntax).

These engines, replete with smart agents wish refer the user to additional data, to cultural products which reflect the user's history of preferences (or pronounced preferences expressed in answers to feedback questionnaires). All the decisions and activities of the user wish be keep in the memory of his search engine and assist it in designing its decision devising trees. The engine wish become an electronic friend, advise the user, even as on professional matters.

Cease-Fire

The surcease of hostilities between the Computer network and several off-the-shelf software system applications heralds the commencement of the integration between the desktop computer and the Net. This is a small step for the user - and a big one for humanity. The animus which prevailed until recently between the Operating system systems and the Hypertext mark-up language language and between most of the standard applications (headed by the Word Processors) - has formally complete with the introduction of Office 97 which incorporates full Hypertext mark-up language capabilities. With the Office 2000 products, the distinctions between a web computing environment and a PC computing one - have all but vanished. Browsers can replace operational systems, word processors can browse, remove and transfer - the PC has finally been entirely absorbed by its offspring, the internet.

The Portable Document Format (PDF) enables the user to activity the Computer network off-line. In another words: text files wish be loaded to word processors and emended off-line. The same applies to another types of files (audio, video).

Downloading time wish be speeded up (today, it takes so long to remove an audio or video file that, galore times, it is impracticable).

This is not a trivial matter. The ability to switch between on-line and off-line states and to continue the work, uninterrupted - this ability means the integration of the PC in the Internet.

There are two competitive views concerning the futurity of computer hardware and several of them acknowledge the importance of the Internet.

Bill Gates - Microsoft's legendary boss - says that the PC wish continue to advance and strengthen its process and computing powers. The Computer network wish be just another tool accessible through telecommunications, rather than through the ownership of hard copies of software system and data. The Computer network is perceived to be a tremendous external database, accessible for process by tomorrow's desktops. This view is recently being bit by bit reversed in view of the astounding vitality and powers of the Internet.

Gates is convergence on the worldview control by Sun Microsystems.

The futurity desktop wish be a terminal, albeit powerful and with appreciable processing, computing and communications capabilities. The name of the game wish be the Computer network itself. The terminal wish access Computer network databases (containing raw or processed data) and satisfy its information needs.

This terminal - equipped with languages the likes of Java - wish get into libraries of software system applications. It wish do use of components of several applications as the inevitably arise. Once finished exploitation the component, the terminal wish "return" it to the virtual "shelf" until the next time it is needed.

This wish minimize memory resources in the desktop.

The truth, as always, is probably somewhere in the middle.

Tomorrow's computer wish be a house amusement centre. No user wish accept total dependence on telecommunications and on the Net. They wish all ask for process and computing powers at their fingertips, a-la Bill Gates.

But tomorrow's computer wish besides function as a terminal, once needed: once data retrieving or even as once exploitation NON standard software system applications. Why purchase seldom used, big-ticket applications - once they are available, for a fraction of the cost, on the Net?

In another words: no user wish subjugate his frequent word process inevitably to the whims of the local phone company, or to those of the site operator. That is why every desktop is still likely to be include a hard (or optical)-disk-resident word process software. But really few wish by CAD-CAM, animation, graphics, or publication software system which they are likely to use infrequently. Instead, they wish access these applications, which wish be resident in the Net, use those parts that are needed. This is usage tailored to the client's needs. This is besides the integration of a desktop (not of a terminal) with the Net.

Decentralized Lack of Planning

The course adopted by content creators (producers) in the last few years proves the maxim that it is easy to repeat mistakes and difficult to derive lessons from them. Content producers are perpetually buying channels to remove their contents. This is a mistake. A careful study of the history of booming media (e.g., television) points to a clean pattern:

Content producers do not grant life-long exclusivity to any single channel. Especially not by buying into it. They prefer to contract for a limited time with content providers (their broadcast channels). They activity with all of them, sometimes simultaneously.

In the future, the same content wish be oversubscribed on several sites or networks, at several times. Sometimes it wish be found with a provider which is a combination of cable TV institution and phone institution - at another times, it wish be found with a provider with expertness in computer networks. More content wish be created topically and distributed globally - and vice versa. The repackaging of proprietary contents wish be the name of the game in several the media firms and the firms which control contents distribution (=the channels).

No exclusivity treaty wish survive. Networks such as CompuServe are doomed and have been doomed since 1993. The approach of decentralised access, through many channels, to the same information - wish prevail.

The Transparent Language

The Computer network wish become the next battleground between have countries and have-not countries. It wish be a cultural war zone (English against French, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Spanish). It wish be politically charged: those wish to restrict the freedom of speech (authoritarian and dictatorial regimes, governments, conservative politicians) against pro-speechers. It wish become a new arena of warfare and an integral part of actual wars.

Different peer groups, educational and financial gain social-economic strata, ethnic, sexual preference groups - wish all fight in the eternal fields of the Internet.

Yet, two developments are likely to pacify the scene:

Automatic translation applications (like Accent and the Alta View translation engines) wish do every bit of information accessible to all. The lingual (and, by extension ethnic or national) source of the information wish be disguised. A feeling of a global village wish permeate the medium. Being ignorant of the English language wish no longer hinder one's access to the Net. Equal opportunities.

The second trend wish be the new classification methods of contents on the Net together with the handiness of chips intended to filter offensive information. Obscene material wish not be accessible to tender souls. anti-Semitic sites wish be blocked to Jews and communists wish be spared Evil Empire speeches. Filtering wish be normally done exploitation extensive and adjustable lists of keywords or key phrases.

This wish lead to the formation of cultural Computer network Ghettos - but it wish besides well reduce tensions and mostly derail democrat legislative efforts aimed at curb or censoring free speech.

Public Computer network - Private Computer network

The day is not far once every user wish be able to define his areas of interest, order of priorities, preferences and tastes. Special applications wish scour the Net for him and retrieve the material appropriate his requirements. This material wish be organized in any manner prescribed.

A private newspaper comes to mind. It wish have a circulation of one copy - the user's. It wish borrow its contents from a few hundreds of databases and electronic versions of newspapers on the Net. Its headlines wish reflect the main areas of interest of its sole subscriber. The private paper wish contain hyperlinks to another sites in the Internet: to reference material, to additional information on the same subject. It wish contain text, but besides graphics, audio, video and photographs. It wish be interactive and editable with the push of a button.

Another idea: the intelligent archive.

The user wish accumulate information, derived from a variety of sources in an archive maintained for him on the Net. It wish not be a classical "dead" archive. It wish be active. A special application wish search the Net daily and update the archive. It wish contain hyperlinks to sites, to additional information on the Net and to alternative sources of information. It wish have a "History" function which wish teach the archive just about the preferences and priorities of the user.

The software system wish recommend new sites to him and subjects similar to his history. It wish alert him to movies, TV shows and new musical releases - all inside his cultural sphere. If positive to purchase - the software system wish order the wares from the Net. It wish then let him listen to the music, see the movie, or see the text.

The computer network wish become a place of unceasing stimuli, of internal order and organization and of friendliness in the sense of in person appreciated acquaintance. Such an archive wish be a veritable friend. It wish alert the user to absorbing news, leave messages and food for thought in his e-mail (or v-mail). It wish send the user a fax if not responded to inside a reasonable time. It wish issue reports every morning.

This, naturally, is only a private case of the depository potential of the Net.

A network connecting more than 16.3 million computers (end 1996) is besides the biggest collective memory effort in history after the Library of Alexandria. The Computer network possesses the combined power of all its constituents. Search engines are, therefore, bound to be replaced by intelligent archives which wish form universal archives, which wish store all the paths to the results of searches plus millions of suggested searches.

Compare this to a newspaper: it is more easier to store back issues of a paper in the Computer network than physically. Obviously, it is more easier to search and the amortization of such a copy is annulled. Such an archive wish let the user search by word, by key phrase, by contents, search the list and hop to another parts of the archive or to another territories in the Computer network exploitation hyperlinks.

Money, Once once again

We have already mentioned SET, the safety standard. This wish facilitate credit card transactions over the Net. These are safe transactions even as now - but there an deep-rooted interest to say otherwise. Newspapers are afraid that advertising budgets wish migrate to the Web. Television harbours the same fears. More commerce on the Net - means more advertising dollars amused from established media. Too galore feel unhappy once confronted with this inevitability. They spread lies which feed off the content just about how safe paying with credit cards on the Net is. Security standards wish terminate this information and transform the Computer network into a commercial medium.

Users wish be able to buy and sell goods and services on the Net and get them by post. Certain things wish be directly downloaded (software, e-books). Galore banking transactions and EDI operations wish be conducted through bank-clients intranets. All stock and trade goods exchanges wish be accessible and the role of brokers wish be minimized. Foreign excha