Janet CollinsA New Revolution?
April 23rd 2009 21:30
The internet is only at the beginning of a revolution and its future is still so much bigger than the past according to Tim Berners-Lee, one of the inventors of the World Wide Web.
At a seminar on Wednesday, Berners-Lee told of how we have not even seen yet the web as he had envisaged it. Robert Cailliau who designed the internet with Berners-Lee agrees.
What they had set out to do back in 1989 was to enable scientists around the world to share information and data but the internet has been restricted in its reach and this has stalled its worldwide growth. Despite that, the internet has provided change that he could not have predicted. Businesses that could not have existed without the internet have popped up around the world, information has been far more accessible, literacy and learning have advanced and people have been brought together through cheaper modes of communication.
The founders say that while the internet has dramatically changed lives around the world, its full impact will only be realised when far more people and information go online. Vinton Cerf, a co-founder expects the population using the internet to increase as mobile internet access takes off, especially in developing nations. Current statistics estimate that only five per cent of all Africans surf the net while the global estimate is 23 per cent.
What also was not predicted and has even surprised the co-founders is the popularity of user-generated content such as blogs. The number of websites in 1994 was 500. Today this number has escalated to 80 million. Many of these are corporate and other websites but a great proportion are blogs and other user-generated content and that continues to amaze them.
A few months back, I stumbled across a book that was published early last year. “Here Comes Everybody – How to Organise without Organisations” written by Clay Shirky. Shirky is a tech academic and has become a bit of a guru apparently in studies on interaction on the internet. He gives some pretty good arguments in support of the whole phenomenon, especially for those who are still quite sceptical of the internet linking up people.
Shirky too believes we are in the beginning of a revolution. I have to say I laboured through the book after an initial enthusiasm but he certainly argues his case well, backing it up with well documented cases. I'd say this would probably enlighten those who continue to rubbish the internet as being an inferior medium for connecting people to one another.
The book starts off with the story of a young woman who leaves her mobile phone in a taxi only for it to be found by the next person in the taxi who then passed the phone on to his sister. What seemed to be a rather insignificant case of theft, set off a whole string of events.
Long story short – with the help of a dedicated and passionate friend who was a tech geek, the woman was not only able to locate the phone , but to motivate hundreds who came to a website created for the sole purpose of getting the phone back, force the NYPD to change the report from a lost phone to a stolen one and finally get the phone back. All this was done through My Space, web technology and a new kind of power that technology has handed the world community.
The loss of the mobile was not the point here. The loss of the phone was an incident that incited enough people to congregate and organise themselves using the modern technology, something that will definitely occur with more frequency as the internet develops and expands..
This episode is one of many that Shirky uses. It demonstrates how power is now being stripped from the traditional organisations of government and business because of an ability for the population generally to organise themselves without them.. There are plenty more examples, not least of all, the Obama campaign.
The whole thrust of the book is where the internet has taken us up to now. We are able to congregate and mobilise. In Shirky’s assessment, the internet has brought power back to people; something which he believes is only in its infancy. The new revolution he calls it.
A while back In The Sydney Morning Herald , I read an interesting review of another book written on the subject including parts of an interview with the writer. The book, Cyburbia, is written by British journalist and author James Harkin (No Logo)
Cyburbia is more about how technology is changing the way we think. The prying and the voyeurism that the new electronic communications permits us to do, he believes, resembles more of the 50s era suburbia, of peeking over the fence and right into the next door neighbours lounge room. I have not read Cyburbia yet so I cannot vouch for it, but if the reviews are anything to go by it will be certainly worth a read for sceptics and believers alike.
Both writers agree that this new world is shifting the power base back to the people. They both also recognise the pitfalls. Fanatics can just as easily congregate on the internet. as anyone; Internet security has now become a worldwide concern and incidents of cyber bullying continue to escalate, although fraud and bullying existed long before the internet was ever invented. What it really means is that lawmakers are now under pressure to keep pace with the fast development of online activity.
Not long ago, I heard another issue that we may all have to deal with on internet use. It is dealing with grief and changing the way we grieve. A report from BBC radio told of a man who had two of his friends die, both suddenly and in tragic circumstances. The both friends were long time cyber buddies who had forged personal relationships with him . At the time of the report, his friends' cyber profiles were still online.
He told of how sometimes the names would pop up in his emails when he started typing a similar name and how their pictures were still there on his friends’ pages. He likened it to a feeling of being visited by the dead – an almost eerie feeling.
We cannot ignore that new technology has created new problems for security, privacy and social interaction. Neither can we ignore how it has changed how we think and how we do things but we would be hard pressed denying that it has changed a lot of the world for the better.
Does it all mean, then, that we are in the beginning of a new revolution? Will there be some sort of world population uprising? Or maybe it's all a complete exaggeration of where the internet is likely to take us all. Who really knows?
Sources:
www.afp.com
www.smh.com.au
Image credit: www.bbc.co.uk
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Comment by Norm
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I think I'm representing Hugo, fairly.
It's a true classic, anyway.
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Comment by Janet Collins
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it was a very good example of people organising themselves with the help of technology for a particular cause. Maybe a little over the top but it shows anything is possible.
Comment by Carolyn Cordon
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How do You Express Your Creativity?
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Comment by Janet Collins
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The pollies do already know. That's why they are making so much of an effort to do censorship of the web that is being disguised as protecting us from porn.
I wrote a post on this move to censor the web recently. If you are interested it is here.
Janet
Comment by Tracy Wade
When I first went online, and did a search of Johnny Depp, there were 5 links. Yup, a whole 5. And I was thinking, wtf is all this about?? Now, there are over 10.5 million!!!
And as for censoring, it's not just the Asian countries. 2 years ago, I could have bought a pet tiger, chimpanzee, gorilla, or any other exotic animal online, provided I had the bucks. But today, at least here in Canada, there is no such thing, it is censored. And no, I do NOT want one of these animals for pets! It was idle curiosity that sent me to those sites.
I now find myself re-reading 1894 by George Orwell, after having first read this book back in about '74, as required reading for school. Back then, it seemed like Sci-Fi... and it now seems like, ho hum... that's our politicians for you
Comment by Janet Collins
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You have registered I see. Good on you.
Yes, I am tempted to revist 1984 too. I have the DVD as well. It is interesting how his predictions which did seem over exaggerated, even if alarming, at the time have now become a reality.
Thanks a lot for the visit.