The Next Big Thing.
The Internet continues to evolve, integrating video and podcasts as well
as the inexorable increases in broadband access and processor speed.
Browser enhancements proceed and the Web is now the largest recipient of
advertising dollars. Blogs have achieved a critical mass and online
magazines are more central to the intellectual debate than printed
materials as more people get their news online than from any other source.
These changes, however, are only marginal in nature. The Internet, at
least as experienced by most users, feels as if it has at last
plateaued. One cannot help but get the impression that changes from this
point forward will resemble consecutive versions of the Windows OS --
more a honing than transformation.
This is an illusion.
Forces are coalescing that will produce a shift comparable at least to
the spread of broadband. This change will have enormous financial,
cultural and political repercussions, and the most interesting aspect of
the coming transformation is that it will not be some new and unexpected
thing.
Rather, the Web for many will become the cliched 3D virtual reality that
has been so overused as a literary and cinematic device that most of us
have forgotten how compelling that vision was when it first appeared.
Before describing this evolutionary leap, however, we should spend a
little time thinking about the key event that led to the last one: the
Internet you are using now to read these words.
more...
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=102306A
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