2007 is almost over. Its time to make new year resolutions and retrospect on the year gone by. And why not make some predictions while you are at it. They say about predictions, study the past in depth to predict the future accurately.
Here is my study of the past events to predict the future of the internet.
The Web
In 1994, it was static and slow. Most people dialed in from a oversized PC and clicked on text or graphics. Since then, Sun Microsystems invented Java a programming language that can make a Web page become an interactive game or work tool. Macromedia made Flash, which helps bring multimedia to the Web. Little by little, homes got high-speed Internet connections cable modems or DSL until now when nearly half of all homes with Internet connections have broadband.
Broadband brought video and music to the Web and, in turn, helped persuade media companies to create digital content, record labels to sell downloadable music on services such as iTunes, and movie companies to sell downloadable movies. So entertainment is becoming digitized and ready to send anywhere.
Infrastructure
Behind the Web, companies built infrastructure that stands ready to do much more than just run Web sites.
Orbitz started out as a site for selling airline tickets. It has since constructed a massive database of travel information and user preferences and a transaction system that can handle millions of purchases a day.
Google, Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo and other big Web players have built similarly turbocharged systems powerful engines waiting for those companies to step on the gas. Amazon.com did exactly that when it unveiled A9, its new search engine with advanced personalization capabilities Amazon has built over the past decade with Google-style search, taking a step toward delivering more useful information.
Hardware
Just think of what's been developed in the past decade, cell phones with cameras. BlackBerry e-mail devices. Pocket PCs such as Hewlett-Packard's iPaq. Music players such as the iPod. And $500 PCs with more power than anything that would cost 10 times that in past. All will play a role in the world network, helping messages, content and services reach users wherever they are.
Software and more
Advances in software such as XML coding lets Web sites exchange information with each other automatically in real time. Wireless networks, whether new high-speed cell systems or Wi-Fi, enable information to follow people. Meanwhile GPS and cell phones that can pinpoint the user's location can help the network deliver information based on where he or she is.
RFID is beginning to let inanimate things identify themselves wirelessly. It might be the most profound new piece of the world network. Companies are increasingly putting RFID tags on products. The tiny tags hold information about the items they are attached to, constantly pinging the network with radio signals It's the beginning of the network's ability to know not only where you are but what's around you.
Take your handheld wireless network device into your pantry 20 years from now, and it might instantly know all the items there and deliver a list of recipes you could make from the ingredients.
Better economics
The economics in place are 1,000 times better than 10 years ago. If you launch an Internet business today, it's probably going to cost you about a tenth of what it would have cost five years ago, but you're going to have 10 times more consumers you can address and probably 10 times the ad revenue. And what is more, people are going to be 10 times more willing to buy online. So you have this big economic swing in favor of the next wave.
So here is the prediction.
Up until now, you went on the Internet to find something, you sat down at a computer and tapped into search engines or shopping sites. In the future, the network and the information will give you, unprompted, what you want depending on where you are and what you're doing. That is seamless mobility for you.
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