The Future Of Internet
If you take a few moments to think about internet technology, you will realize that technological advances have come a very long way. It is amazing. Where has technology taken us? Many places.
The fact that technological advances have tripled within the last 40 years compared to the 40 years before is astounding. While some of these advances may have made distractions at work (I’m guilty) a little more prevalent, it has also opened up the workplace to exciting new ways to conduct business and think about new ways to reach the consumer.
Of course, one of the major advances in the workplace was the everyday usage of the Internet. Although the Internet has been around for decades, it only became a workplace necessity in the 1990s. This is when companies realized that they could much more quickly-and cheaply-reach their target audience than through other traditional media sources.
Even more amazing, technology continues to move outside the traditional office or home environment into more powerful and full-featured mobile computing devices. BlackBerries, iPhones and Windows Mobile devices are showing a trend toward bringing the experiences we are familiar with on a desktop computer and putting them in the palm of our hands. With better devices and technology, other things have to keep up as well. The biggest breakthrough will be in increasing the speed of mobile access to the Internet. In the future, the all-encompassing network of wireless broadband Internet access will rival what we experience today in our wired offices and homes, which will allow users for a more sophisticated browsing experience.
I think in the next 5 years or so, the internet will be looked at as commonplace. Everyone will be connected to everyone else at all times. Perhaps if I take a little bit to think about the future, I can probably guess that watching TV on the internet will be almost as common enough to not require a local cable service. Most of the shows I watch are broadcast online, sometimes better looking than watching it on cable television and I think more and more people will realize this and it’ll be quite popular. That would mean better innovations and better services on Cable companies’ parts.
It is a never-ending story of internet and the technology behind it, and I am anxious to see the best of it. However, I am an optimist. There are those that are not so anxious and for good reason. We all know that with better technology going into internet and other things, that problems arise and individuals find loopholes, and hackers have that better technology to do “bigger and better things.” There is a not-so-pretty side of things unfortunately, but we will coupe, and time will tell.
To read a good book about this topic, I recommend The Future of Internet and How to Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain and it talks about a lot of interesting topics and ideas. Check it out at your local library or buy it online!
