What's 10 Internet Years in People Years?
Tomorrow marks a bit of a milestone for me: in addition to being my birthday, Saturday marks my 10th anniversary as a full-time internet professional. In internet years, ten years seems like a lifetime ago; in 1997, Netscape and Internet Explorer were still at war (both had been around barely two years), Amazon.com went public, the dot-com bubble was barely a twinkle in the eyes of investors, and Google was just two guys in a garage.Ten years later, it feels like the internet has been around forever, and even those of us who clearly remember the public web's humble beginnings constantly take it for granted. Right now, in the midst of Web-2.0 mania, I'm amazed at how few people seem to remember the dot-com bubble bursting, and that was barely five years ago. If we 30-something professionals can barely conceive of a world without the internet, imagine the mindset of today's average American high-school student, who has lived her entire life in a web-enabled world.
What's my point? Who knows; it's almost my birthday, so indulge me. As a psychologist and technologist, I'm constantly fascinated by the idea that the internet has changed virtually everything we do, and yet we barely seem to notice, preferring to plow forward on the path of progress. The irony is that, in the midst of all of this change, we seem to act like today's trends are somehow eternal. I find it constantly entertaining that we talk about Google, for example, as some sort of unstoppable juggernaut, even though they've only been a public company since 2004.
So, what can we expect in 2017? Even if I knew, I wouldn't want to ruin it for you; the journey, after all is half the fun.
Dr. Pete
· Sunday, July 29Part of me wonders what of this whole reaction to change is what every generation goes through, and what of it is unique to the very real information revolution that I think is going on under our noses. I suspect that, years from now, we'll realize just how monumental of an impact the internet had.
Mike Maddaloni
· Saturday, July 28Hey birthday boy... as a newly former thirty-something (today!) I say this is an evolving perspective. Ten years from now (when I will be 50!) the kids today will be in their late 20's and their younger generation will be wondering why they were actually typing text messages into phones and why the pictures from phones were so grainy, et. al.!
mp/m