The Internet Isn't For Porn, or The New Internet

I came to the realization the other day that I've been using the Internet for some 13 years. I do vaguely remember logging into AOL on my 56k modem back in 1995. It was an exciting time. You could actually chat with someone in another state! Though for no more than an hour a day because it cost money to use dial-up in those dark ages. It's interesting because I never really understood what Web sites were until much later. If I couldn't find it through AOL Keyword search, I wasn't quite sure where to go. It's hard for me to sit back and imagine that time period. Not many of my friends had IM, so I went into random AOL Kids Zone chat rooms and made friends. Again, it was hard because dial-up tied up the phone line, and you couldn't have that.

In February 1999, I was "born again" on the Internet. I got a brand new iMac and it changed the way I used the internet. I finally figured out how to get to Amazon.com, and I learned what Yahoo! was. It was a strange time. It's hard to think that was only 9 years ago. Still on dial-up, but so much faster than it had been 4 years before. After a few furtive purchases on Amazon, we didn't touch it again until Christmas of that year, nearly 10 months later. For my family and I, the Internet was still new. We even called in the Credit Card number on that first purchase.

By 2002 (and Sophomore year of High School), I had finally figured this Internet thing out. I was using Web sites regularly, making frequent use of Amazon and eBay and exploring. In 2004, we finally upgraded to broadband and this just served to mean I was on the Internet more. And now here we are, 2008 on the eve of my last classes as an Undergraduate and I'm filling out a blog entry for a class on Interactive Media. It's been a weird 13 years of the Internet for me. But it does give me some unique insight into how things have changed. (It's also hard to imagine that incoming Freshman to Fordham where born in 1990.)

Web 2.0 is new the buzzword of the last two or so years. This is the big, user generated internet push. Things like Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and more are representations of this move toward users creating the content of a Web site. Blogs and online Journals have recently become media savvy, gaining legitimacy. They've become cross-media platforms with embedded videos, a plethora of hyperlinks and tags-a-plenty. Web 2.0 is part of the evolution of the Internet into that which is being called (with about the imagination of a 6 year old) The New Internet.

We've heard recently that we're running out domain names in the next 2-5 years, that the Internet (that is the current or "Old" Internet) will hit its maximum capacity of users and demand by 2010 - 2012 (The latter being the year the World ends for some people, see Mayan Calendar). The New Internet will apparently run on fiber optics and is projected to be 10,000 times faster than our current Internet, broadcasting around 1800 MB a second. For those in the ever-growing field of Internet piracy, that means rough 6 episodes of a 45-minute long TV Show in a second.

But the New Internet won't just be better at processing information and getting you the latest mash-up of Chocolate Rain on YouTube in seconds. (Or perhaps you're a fan of Tay Zonday's other hit Internet Dream.) The New Internet will be a place where Wikipedia-type Web sites are the norm. Resources where the users are using their own expertise to make content better. Blogs could be the place to see news first on the new Web, MySpace and Facebook might replace AIM as a means of a communication (especially now with the ultra-creepy Facebook IM system.) The New Internet could very well be based heavily on Web 2.0 principals. (PS, they're already working on Web 3.0).

I couldn't tell you for sure where the Internet is going to go in the future. One hopes that it will evolve into something strong, something universal. Who knows, maybe Second Life will become the visual aspect of the Internet? Kind of like that Dave Chappelle skit which I would gladly post if only Comedy Central didn't delete anything they copyrighted on the Net. But I don't think we're quite ready for a visually-interactive Internet. We need to still get over Web sites with pictures and videos because they're still relatively new. Heck, there aren't even really books on the subject of social media yet. We're still exploring for ourselves, and the best people suited to develop Web 2.0 and the New Internet are still coming through college. They're the kids who were born with the Internet, the ones who don't remember a time without it. (And to be honest, my early memories of it are pretty boring.) So, that's it. My thoughts on the Internet after looking into the subject these last few months. It's a weird thing. An organic inorganic-technology. It lives and grows because of the millions of people taking care of it. With those kind of parents, it has all the potential in the world.

And, because it's an Interactive Media class, I feel I should share the best medium of them all: The Rick Roll.