Web as application.

The internet browser has been changed into an application to stream content to an individual. It’s all about the content. And so what does this do? Content, information, experiences, become a gathering place and slowly populations begin to be built. And just like when any other human existence has met they begin to grow and multiply.

And so the web will slowly retreat into groups of people to become ‘cities’ on the internet. Groups of users using paypal as banking, amazon as they’re local store, and then even more diverse as a specific car parts website. They are shared favorites that then become the standard in a category. These are your cities and suburbs by groups of liked interests rather than mere geography.

I think we can now start to plot out the tidal reach of the internet this organism that now starts to shape the lives of people.

What happens to you when you’re dead on the internet?

I had an acquaintance that I know of, peripherally, that died recently. This person was a prolific blogger, ending in July of 2008 but starting way back in 2002. 6 years worth of journaling, an online diary of a persons life. Will this blog be deleted by the site that hosts it? (a well known blogging company) Will it be relegated to be the odd Google search result? This problem is what makes the Internet Archive pretty powerful. As much as possible a living, detailed history of the internet.

Thinking long term, 50 maybe 100 years what that information would b worth, how much it would contain. 100 years of records of behavior. Further, 1000 years of human interaction detailed on the internet. Emails, forum posts, audio, video, artwork from every form of man. What would we give to have as complete information of 1000 years in the past? A vast and complete archive of the internet and it’s traffic I think is important.

Funded in perpetuity, kept as public vault a record of humanity. That would provide countless answers to questions in the future. Knowing and understanding who we are, what we are. Which is what makes the internet such an important thing in the terms of mankind.

We’re going to see where we are as humanity the same reason that geographically remote areas have tribal groups we’ll see outliers to borrow a word. We’ll see some places where access will be restricted by religions that don’t want to corrupt they’re fundamentalist believers. Restricted by politick to keep citizens from learning anything other than the proscribed doctrine, and so we have this flow of access to the internet, this tide of humanity, pockets of civilizations not bound by geography but by shared belief, shared experiences and locales.

These will be the internets tribal groups and access to the internet is going to reshape the political and racial boundaries of peoples.

We are becoming our digital identities.

As we continue to use the internet for buying goods and services these companies are starting a grassroots movement to only use email to communicate. More and more companies are eliminating telephone contact with their customers. Severing the face to face or being to being meeting. These companies are becoming almost wholly virtual. The entire medium of the transaction is digital. No paper trail. Bank accounts existing only digitally. We’re losing the need to establish a 1 to 1 physical relationship to gain their trust. Where once when you wanted to make a trade or deal with another person to do something there would follow an elaborate ritual between each other gauging what we each want and what is the best mutual decision. Our greed fighting someone else’s greed causes us to come to an unspoken agreement that there’s only so much I can get and I’ll have to sacrifice something. And that sacrifice is what we do as nations. We try to gauge what we as a civilization will have to sacrifice and what we will gain. And so our laws that govern us are almost wholly the same. Laws that have been proscribed have their mirrors among many countries, we are agreeing on morality or toleration of each other. What we will and won’t allow of each other. So my need to know where this companies good or service is based physically, who is running it doesn’t matter because the laws of commerce and business are dictating our tolerance. Don’t scam me and I don’t scam you.

We are becoming more and more like our email addresses. We are becoming our digital identities.

Micro-internet economies.

I think we’re seeing the rise of micro internet economies. I frequent a number of boards for all sorts of topics and each one has become a trusted source of second hand goods. As these forum communities become self policing trust builds in xxxxx.com as being a reliable place to buy or sell. The risks are understood as well as the remedies so commerce flows.

The Internet is going to bring another economic global boom just like the first one with the use of Exchanges arising in the late17th century.

Upload/Download

Upload / Download should be more aptly titled Publish/Consume in today’s internet usage.

Advertising on the internet.

The internet is the global meeting place for the planet. It’s everywhere. It just is. The Internet is something wholly new in the World. It’s more than webpages with sports scores, it’s the cellphone network which has mated with the web, it’s the GPS satellites which we can use to track our specific loction on the planet in relation to everyone else on the internet. It’s the satellites who transfer our transmissions of data, entertainment and information to each other. It’s the ability for us to use the Internet to transcend our borders to explore each other, to explore our world. To know one another. It is where Children in Tokyo go to get to the latest American Pop Idol’s presence on the informational data stream. To know that theres someone over here singing and dancing and doing something. For a man to tap into the global information stream to contact his wife across town instantly via audio, video, text message, email to know if he was supposed to pickup the blue or the pink pillow. He can send her a picture to which she can call and talk to confirm. It’s where businessmen in Dubai are looking to find buyers on the planet who want silks and linens. Where a hotel purchasing agent is looking to supply her chain with fancy linens and finds sellers across the planet. A man in Sweden takes photographs and post’s his photos for everyone else on the planet to see what he sees. To show his world as he see’s it. For him to buy the Camera from a seller in Korea and a lens from a fellow photographer in Argentina whome he met on a forum discussing like interests.

The internet is no less than the interconnectedness of humanity. Our etherial tether to each other. Communication, the exchange of ideas, information. The internetwork of humanity is communication. For us to transcend our borders mentally to expand our awareness of whats around us. Not just physically through government use of exploration to take new territories like an evergrowing ant mound. But socially through communication. With communication we can share our understanding of life around us. To realize we are together.